Chinchilla Community Forums
Chinchillas => Health => Topic started by: Jasonred79 on March 07, 2014, 07:48:16 AM
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Was tossing around ideas in my head, and a few things struck me.
I heard that, the problem with Chinchillas that stop eating for a long time is that the bacteria they need for digestion die out.
I also heard that chin's eating their own poop does no harm.
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Was wondering, if, for chinchillas that stopped eating, whether it is a good idea to (along with critical care) add ground up poop from a different, healthy chinchilla to their menu?
Sure, it SOUNDS nasty, but I was informed that chinchilla poop is not only fairly nutritious for them, but it is a GREAT medium for the GOOD bacteria that chins need to digest hay.
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Can anyone here share their knowledge on why this would or wouldn't work?
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I think it might be a great idea for chinchillas that are done with their course of antibiotics and are still having problems. In fact there are treatments like that for people too. It is called a fecal transplant.
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For people? ... I'm not certain, but I'm under the impression that eating human poop isn't healthy for me? Lol... Well, even if someone assures me it's safe, I'm not gonna do it.
From what I can see though, Popsicle does eat his own feces occasionally, and seems fine... And anyhow, grass eating animals like rabbits HAVE to do it or they starve I heard?
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Yeah, it's done through an NG tube under sedation in people but there are extreme circumstances that call for it.
A chinchilla won't starve if you don't give it access to its droppings and neither will that be the case with rabbits, at least in captivity. Pets are going to be fed diets that are richer in nutrients than they really need. These animals produce partially digested feces (called caecotropes, sense they actually come back into the colon via the cecum) at certain times of day and run them back through to extract even more nutrients from them. They will get a wider range of nutrients this way and the good microbes that survive get re-deposited through the small intestines.
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I have read that people with guinea pigs do this when their pigs get sick