Chinchilla care and Hair Rings

Chili 2002 - 2011

Having children often means experiencing the joys and sorrows of loving and losing pets.
Sometimes I worry I've damaged my kids with all the heartache, but I also know they wouldn't be the empathetic, warm people they've grown up to be without the experience of responsibility and dealing with the stages of grief when they pass.

We've had the hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, rabbits and even rats (from the lab when my sister was in school for veterinary technician). But when my son asked for a chinchilla at the age of eleven we hesitated. I believed rodents just don't live long enough to invest that kind of money in an exotic animal. But come Christmas there was a complete set-up, pen and all, at a local pet shop. A woman was turning it over because her child wasn't taking proper care of it and she didn't want it to become her job. So since the price was right and these animals have a much longer life span than a rabbit or guinea pig (15+ years vs. 4 - 5 yrs.) we brought Chili home for the holidays.

Not knowing a thing about these critters, we did our homework and thought we did everything right. He was about 1 - 2 years old when we got him and by five years later, my son was 16 and drifting further away from paying what I thought was enough attention to Chili.
So we kept an eye out for a companion at our local Humane Society and eventually adopted Bugsy (he looked like a mouse to me with those eyes so different than Chili).

Putting two adults together is often a 'hit or miss' but being both were males it worked out great. I think it was that Chili was so easy going. Where my son could walk around with Chili sitting on his shoulder, Bugsy was more of a spazz and would leap off and be very hard to catch. I don't think he was handled very much as a baby.

We always assumed that we would have both chinchillas all the way through our kids' college years and beyond. What happened caught us off guard and I can't believe with all the information I had I never heard to look out for what is called a 'hair ring'.

Though rarely home, our son didn't worry about Chili's care because he knew I'd take care of him when he couldn't, and Chili had Bugsy for company. So we didn't notice anything wrong until what seemed like overnight Chili looked weak and thinner.
What we found was a fuzzy looking penis which upon inspection was tightly wound hair that had pulled back into the sheath and cut off urine flow. We don't know how long it was like that but obviously long enough to compromise his bladder and kidney function.

We removed him from his cage and kept a careful eye on him to see if he could urinate, which he did so hoped there wasn't permanent damage.
We found an exotic veterinarian within an hour's drive who was wonderful but told us up front how delicate these creatures are and stress alone can cause further illness.
We spent eight days in round the clock care making sure Chili was fed a critical care gruel type food, received an antibiotic, eye drops, and kept hydrated using an eyedropper. IV fluids weren't an option, poking needles would just have been too stressful.

It was two steps forward and one step back. Every time we thought he was doing better, he'd then become very weak all over again. We just kept telling ourselves if his kidneys weren't working properly he wouldn't have lasted more than a day or two.
Nine days after we first discovered the hair ring we met a new day saying goodbye to our little friend.
Needless to say we really bonded to our little chinchilla after all that, and will miss him a great deal. I feel guilty that maybe if I had paid more attention it all could have been prevented. But I also am realistic that with a busy household and multiple pets sometimes we just have to accept 'what is'.

Hopefully our experience will prevent this from happening again. Jared has two friends who have these exotic pets and neither ever heard of hair rings. Normally chins can remove any caught hairs while grooming. We now know to periodically inspect the penis by pulling back on the sheath and look for any trapped hairs. I doubt Bugsy will appreciate our poking but that is the way it's going to be.