 PART THREEThe last in our three articles for theclub magazine,
focussing on First Aid for our Chinchillas.
We hope you havefound them useful,educational
and interesting in caring for your Chinchillas |
HELPING CHINCHILLAS GAIN WEIGHT AFTER ILLNESS
Written by - Julie Foster
Chinchilla Club Member For small bleeding cuts, like when one chinbites another on the nose or
foot, we've used a styptic pencil to stop the bleeding(if this has another
name in Europe, I don't know what it is, but it lookslike white chalk)
and/or hydrogen peroxide, applied with a cotton ball,to prevent infection.
To help a thin chin gain weight, mix chin pelletswith honey (or molasses),
dried fruit bits, shreddedcoconut, and seeds (we
used sesame and poppy seeds). When we did this,we also sometimes added
peanut butter (but beware of possible allergic reactions),almond paste,
baby food (peas, apricots, etc), Nutrical, or CriticalCare. The last two
are commercial products to help sick animals gainweight, maintain
nutrition, obtain fiber. I think Nutrical ismainly for calories and
Critical Care is mainly for fiber. (AlthoughNutrical is advertised as
"palatable," our chin wouldn't eat it unless it wasmixed with honey).
When we had to hand feed a sick chin every couple of hourswith a syringe, we
ground up all the solid food in a food grinder, thenadded the honey, baby
food, Nutrical, Critical Care, and some water. We also fed water separately
every few mouthfuls from another syringe. Achin so sick it needs
hand-feeding should also be under the care of a veterinarian,of course. We
discovered, however, that although our local exoticpet vets could prescribe
medicines, they were unable to give us useful adviceon what to feed to get
our chin to gain weight. We developed thisfeeding strategy partly by
ourselves and partly by consulting with a differentvet whom we visited for
a second opinion. He particularly stressedthe honey, as it's sweet (tasty
to chins), high calorie, and has some sort of medicinaleffect
(antibacterial I think). With this strategy,we were able to reverse the
weight loss of our originally 420 gram chin who hadgotten down to 300
grams; by the time he was back up to about 350 grams,he was eating on his
own. We stopped adding the high calorieextra foods when he got to about
400 grams. He has grown bigger overall sincethan and is now 505 grams,
beautiful, fluffy, and not overweight.
| Many thanks to our club members who wrote incontributing their handy hints,
when it comes to first aid treatments for Chinchillas.
We however, cannot be held responsible, should these treatments notwork on your Chinchillas,
the advice given is based on our members own experiences. |
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