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1

Health / Chin with a broken pelvis

« on: March 01, 2010, 11:07:33 AM »

I've posted this on a couple chin forums, but I'm trying to get as much information on this as I can. I just want my chin to be okay.

I picked up my chin (3 year old standard female named Tia) on February 18th from a retired couple who didn't have time for her anymore and didn't really pay any attention to her nor know anything about chins. After letting Tia adjust for about a week, I started getting her out and letting her hop around for playtime.

Instantly, I noticed that she really favored her left hind leg. She didn't use it to hop, she couldn't hold something with both paws because she couldn't rest her weight on her hind legs, she was slow in jumping... obviously a vet visit was in order.

Turns out my little Tia has a broken pelvis! Here are the X-rays... This forum made the pictures very small, so I linked them instead. I'm sorry about the huge images! Descriptions of each X-ray are beneath the image.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/abunai_usagi/pelvisview.jpg
Here's her pelvis x-ray... the fracture is encircled in lime green.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/abunai_usagi/rightlegview.jpg
Her (completely okay) right leg - I'm including it for comparison.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v320/abunai_usagi/leftlegview.jpg
Her left leg - you can see the fracture in the bottom left, also encircled with green.

Needless to say, when the vet showed me these I just wanted to puke. 

Per advice from some hardcore chin breeders/enthusiasts/experts on different forums, Tia is now confined in a small cat carrier and will be for the next six weeks. Also, today I am starting her on a homeopathic regimen consisting of calcarea phosphorica 30c and symphytum 30c. I was advised to dissolve one pellet of each in 1mL of water and administer it to her via syringe.

Hopefully this will knit up... That fracture looks really severe (to me). What do you guys think? Has anyone had experience with a broken pelvis? Any luck with homeopathic remedies in chins? Any input would be appreciated!   

2

Q & A / Is Tia a boy?

« on: February 24, 2010, 07:28:45 AM »

The other day, I was talking to Tia with the door open, just feeding her hay from my hands and such. She leaned up on her hind legs to groom her belly quick, and in that flash of time I saw something that looked awfully like boy parts.

Yesterday, I decided to inspect for myself. I got Tia out - she did very well, although she was hard to catch - sat her on my bed, and lifted her onto her hind legs so that I could see her belly. I only was able to look for about maybe five or ten seconds (she was having none of this!), but I made a diagram of what I saw.



I know what the anus looks like, but there was also that long thing... I know female chinchillas have a urethral cone, but isn't that really long for a urethral cone? It extended to around half an inch (1.3 cm)... so...

Is Tia actually a Mr. T?

3

Q & A / Learning to read her, but still murky...

« on: February 21, 2010, 04:52:51 PM »

Hi again! I'm sorry I'm asking so many questions, I've been doing a lot of reading on past posts here, but I can't alway find the information I need.

Tia is a three year old female - I adopted her from a couple who didn't have time for her anymore. Her house is on my dresser, which is about four and a half feet tall. Her cage is at least three feet tall, so I have to use a stool to get up to her. I think she likes being up high though, it lets her see everything. She's taken to sitting on a ledge I put in the top front right corner.

Anyway, here are my concerns. She hasn't really been eating. She came with a gravity bin filled with maybe two pounds of food, so I couldn't tell if she was eating. Last night I removed it and replaced it with a crock with a tablespoon of pellets in it. When I left at noon this morning, it didn't look like she had eaten any.

I like to play a game with her where I give her a rolled oat flake (they're treats for her, as well as craisin bits) and then let her sniff my hand. She let me pet her nose and scritch behind her ear when she could have easily hopped away, and she was grinding her teeth while I did so. I was talking to her while doing that, and then I let her alone. I played  that game a few more times that night, and the last time she kind of pulled her head away and hopped off.

I've had her since Thursday and she still won't dust. When I put her bathhouse in, she gets excited and she sniffs it and explores it, but then just ignores it.

I've also observed her licking the air after I give her an oat flake, and sometimes it looks like she's pulling fur out of her belly.

Is this normal? What should I do?

**UPDATE**

She is doing fine, I was just being paranoid! She dusted last night and she's really warming up now.

4

Q & A / Plastic stuff...

« on: February 20, 2010, 07:30:13 PM »

Hello!

I know plastic is bad for chins, and I am working on removing all of the plastic bits from Tia's cage. Here is my concern, though... her wheel is made of plastic. I really don't want to get rid of it, because I was told she loves it (I've only had a few days, but her former owner told me that she runs in it every night)... so what should I do?

Thanks!

5

General Chat / I can't get over how gentle they are!

« on: February 20, 2010, 11:43:33 AM »

I just got my chinchilla, a three-year old female named Tia, from an old retired couple (I posted in the Guestbook about it). I've had her for two full days now, and she is still timid and such, but I can not get over how gentle she is! I always feed her a little bit of craisin or oat flake when I leave the house and when I come back (I cut the craisins in six pieces so they go a long way). Usually when I leave she's awake, because I leave the house at 7am and she's awake from the night. Today though, I left at noon because it's Saturday.

Her hidey hut faces away from me, so I can't see her when I offer her the treat if she's completely inside it, which she was today. Then I just felt this soft warmth against my fingers and a gentle tugging on the craisin, but I was holding it too tight, she wouldn't take it. I loosened my grip and she took it. She is so gentle, even though I just got her, I am just completely in love with her!

I was always into rats before this, and I lamented on their short life span (3 years is pretty old with them, but I had a girl who lived to 4), but I think I'm becoming a chinchilla person because of Tia. I get very attached to animals, so their long lifespan really suits me.

I guess what I'm saying is - are they all this gentle? 

6

Guestbook / Good day, new chin owner here!

« on: February 19, 2010, 07:48:27 PM »

Hi all! My name's Ash, I'm 20 years old, and I'm a first-time chinnie owner. The chin in question is a three-year old female named Tia who I found via an ad on Craigslist. She was owned by a nice, rich retired couple who wanted to travel and couldn't find anyone to take care of her.

I was just wondering if what has been happening is normal, and any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

When I met the couple, the husband was at work and the wife was at home. She showed me Tia, who was kept in a nice big airy cage in the foyer. They sold me all of Tia's stuff and her cage, and it was crazy cheap - a hundred bucks. Dang good deal, I think.

Anyway, the lady showed me Tia's cage and reached in and scooped Tia right out and plopped her in my arms. I guess she wanted to show me that Tia doesn't bite. She didn't bite, but it did scare the heck out of her. She started throwing fur, which surprised the lady, and I told her that it was a defensive move that chins do when they're scared (I did a good deal of research before coming to pick Tia up).

They really didn't know anything about chins at all, just that it was a cute pet. They took good care of her though, she has really expensive food and good quality wood shaving bedding (at least as good as wood shavings can go, anyway. I don't use shavings - I use Kaytee Soft Sorbent, because it's so wonderfully dust free!)

We put Tia back in her cage, and covered the cage with a dark brown sheet before moving her out to the car. I read that that would help keep them calm, but she was scared anyway. I can't blame her. It was an hour and a half drive home, and she took it well, I guess. She sat in the bottom corner on the floor the whole time - in fact, she had been sitting there when I first saw her. A friend of mine who also has a chin advised me to put a shirt in there with her so that she'd get used to my smell. There was a small, open plastic box in the opposite corner, which I put my sleeping shirt in (later I found out it's her potty box - whoops!).

The cage is still covered with the sheet - the top, back, and right side are covered, but the front and left side are open. I read that this helps them feel enclosed and safe.

Tia will take bits of craisin (I cut them into five or six pieces so they go further, I know they can't have many treats) from my hand, and she just stayed in that bottom corner. I noticed she didn't have any hidey huts, so I got her one and put it on the third floor of her cage, with the opening face away from the front. Within minutes, she had plopped her fuzzy butt in it. When she was still there the next morning, I realized that I didn't want her sitting on the mesh like that for hours at a time - I've had guinea pigs and rats and bumblefoot is *not* fun to treat. I cut two pieces of cardboard, and shooed her out of the hidey hut so I could put a piece underneath it. When I shooed her, she scampered to the second floor - where the door was - and put her little hands on the jam, sniffing out at me, then scampered back up to her hidey hut. She was also making these cute little peeping noises later that evening.

Today is the second day I've had her (I got her yesterday), and she is starting to explore and sniff around. I added a wooden platform to the top of her cage, and moved a little one that she came with that had been three inches off the ground previously (how pointless). Literally, within a minute of me moving the original, small shelf, she had come out of her hidey hut, sniffed the shelf, and then leaped onto it and perched there like a little fat bat for about ten minutes.

I've offered her her dust bath twice, once yesterday and once today, but she won't go in it. She'll sniff at it, pop her head in, and then go back to her hidey hut. I figure she's just afraid because it's enclosed (it's one of the bath-house types) or something, but... I don't really know.

I've been sitting in my bed in the room, letting her get used to my presence, talking to her and reading and just pretty much being there for her to get used to. My room is right over the woodstove we use to heat the house, so my room is the warmest. Because of this, I now keep my door closed and the window cracked, and I also got one of those granite slabs for Tia to sit on (but I haven't added it yet - I don't want to mess with her house too much just yet).

What do you guys think? Is this all pretty standard chinnie behavior? Comments and opinions would be really, really appreciated!!

Sorry I'm a little long winded, I just wanted to explain everything so that you all knew everything. Thank you!!!