Common Mistakes When Medicating a Sick Chinchilla

1 Mistakes to Avoid When Medicating a Sick Chinchilla

Precautions when medicating a sick chinchilla:

1. Being too soft-hearted to force medication. Like children, chinchillas resist pills and injections, but you must still treat them. Refusing medication lets the illness worsen: soft stool can develop into fatal enteritis, and untreated colds can progress to pneumonia.

2. Under-dosing out of fear. Medicine works only at the right concentration. Too little lets viruses build resistance and prolongs the illness, so always follow the vet’s dosage.

3. Switching drugs too quickly. Owners often change medication within 24 hours if no improvement shows, but drugs need time to act. Switching prematurely overloads the body and can nullify an effective drug; fungal skin disease, for example, can take about two weeks to respond.

4. Stopping at the first sign of improvement. Improvement means the drug is working and the disease is receding; this is the time to continue treatment to a full cure. Stopping early lets the illness return, making it harder to treat next time.

Also, some chinchillas hold liquid in their mouth and spit it out later. Do not jam the syringe deep into the throat, as that can choke them and trigger vomiting. Instead, dab a little medicine on the lips; the chinchilla will lick it off. Repeat until the full dose is taken, which is the safest method.

Note: with any liquid, a chinchilla may stop swallowing after a few licks. There is no better option, so stay patient and feed repeatedly to ensure the full dose is given.