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.