Chinchilla Missing Finger!
Posted by Jennifer Snyder on Fri, Aug 01, 2008 @ 11:36 AM
Something extremely scary happened this morning. I walked into my chinchilla
room to greet my 8 chinchillas and Smoke is missing the end of his finger! It
was not bleeding, but the black little pad that is supposed to be there is gone
leaving slightly exposed bone.
I have my chinchillas paired off 1 male and one female in each cage and they
have never been aggressive towards one another with the pairs I have put
together. He also didn't have any furr missing which is usually a sign that
there was a chinchilla fight. I am thinking he may have caught it on something
and damaged his foot. I took Smoke out of his cage to examine his injured foot
and put Neosporin on it and put him back in with Elbow who started grooming him.
There definitely didn't seem to be any aggressive behavior between the two.
I also called our veterinarian, which we are very lucky to have a veterinarian
that actually owns her own chinchilla. In the end of the day, there really
isn't much that can be done. They do not make tiny little chinchilla stitches.
She recommended that I keep Neosporin on it and make sure it does not look
worse in the next day or so. The only thing they could do would be to give him
an antibiotic if it looks infected. If anyone has any suggestions other than Neosporin
please let me know.