my chins were sneezing i think it was due to a drastic tempature change in there room. so the vet gave them baytril 2x day for 10 days. well one of my chins Pooh stopped eating and drinking so we discontinued it. my other chin did fairly well with it, we gave it to him Tigger for 6 days instead of the full 10 cause he started not to eat either. now they were playing well and the sneezing stopped, well one every now and then. but my one chinchilla Pooh who only took the med for 3 days wont pee or poop, and its casue hes hardly eating and drinking very very little. he use to be a pig. i was hand feeding him some hay and hed eat that. but very little food. the vet just disregard this, cause when i took him in again for it, they said he only lost a small amount of weight, nothing to be concerned about. well Um im sorry somethings not right, hes not going to the bathroom and not eating very well. i gave him a snack of raisin and hell eat that and another treat really well. ive held the bowl to his mouth so hed drink, now he wont even drink from there. i shot some water in his mouth tonite to get him to drink. i just dont know what to do (:. the vet was really nice and told me, 'oh sometimes this drug will cause anarexia in the animals'. ok well then how do you fix it? has anyone else had this problem and if so how were you able to get it fixed? where hes back to normal. hes been off the meds for alittle over a week. PLEASE help these are my kids .............
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and theres not another vet who knows exotics in my area.
I haven't had this specific problem with my chinchillas, but there was a time where I had to take him to the vet for an unrelated issue, and despite his claim to know exotic animals well, he didn't help nearly as much as I felt he should have, and basically waved away my concerns. (Even though it's a bad idea) I didn't use the treatment he prescribed, and found my own way to a solution. For this reason, I don't give most veterinarians a lot of credibility when dealing with exotics unless I can tell just by speaking to them that they know a lot more than I do.
The reason I mentioned that is my chin stopped eating well when he was unwell, and I found that at some time I was forced to make him drink and had to change his food to stimulate eating again. I found that I had to mix his regular pellet mix with a gourmet chinchilla diet (which had moths, ewww) but it ended up getting him eating again. As for his drinking, it's critically important that you keep them hydrated. If it means making them drink a little bit of water from a syringe, do it, because if they get too dehydrated their kidneys can fail fast.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
I would suggest right away you go and get a couple chinchilla food bags from different companies (even though I know it's nice to keep them on a steady, non-treat filled food) to see if they don't respond to something. Alfalfa hay might also interest them, at least short term, plus orchard hay or other hay with lots of grain looking pieces might get their interest as well. I also found wood chews with lots of bark on them got them chewing a lot for the sweetness underneath, and it seemed to ease his interset back on to eating and exploring.
If you find that they don't eat anything voluntarily with 24 hours you might have to at least call the vet for advice on what to force feed them, and how. Hopefully you will be able to carry them through the period where the baytril is affecting their appetite. I know just how stressful this can be, I hardly slept at all when mine was unwell. I was lucky to get a full recovery.
Most importantly - lots of water - try lots of different foods and hay. Hopefully that helps. My best wishes.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
P.S. I like the names: D
