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Chinchillas are popular small pets in South Africa, but by virtue of being housed and caged in our homes vets will often see some recurring problems in their clinics.
Some of the more common issues vets will see include;
Dental disease
Chinchilla’s have continuously growing teeth. They need to grind both the incisors and cheek teeth by eating high fibre diets. They may often be presented with swellings around the face and mouth, drooling saliva, anorexia and weight loss. If you see any of these problems, check the dental anatomy, looking for spurs, bleeding cheeks/gums and swellings along the mandibular jaw line. Vets will use lateral, oblique and dorso-ventral x-rays to look for abnormal changes. A great resource for comparing normal and abnormal dental anatomy for vets is ‘Clinical Radiology of Exotic Companion Mammals’.
Gastrointestinal disease
As with all fibrevores, digestive diseases are particularly common, with constipation, dia.. [More]
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