I bought Reba from a good pet shop when she was about twelve weeks old.  She was my very first chinny, and I adore her. She’s now 4 years old.

I created this site in February of 2001, and in March, just as I was putting the finishing touches to this site, her health suddenly deteriorated.

One day, I had just finished cleaning out her cage, and popped her back in, when she suddenly began to behave very strangely. She seemed to have lost control of her balance, and was trembling.  She kept trying to hop about in her cage, but kept falling over – I was so afraid she’d hurt herself I immediately took her back out of her cage and just held her gently for a couple of minutes, till the trembling stopped. At this point I really felt that she’d be less stressed out if left alone in her cage so I put her back in, after removing all the shelves to ensure she wouldn’t injure herself.  I didn’t know what else to do! 

I called the emergency vet (by this time it was about 10.30pm), describing just what had happened.  She told me that there could be one of several causes, but as she hadn’t witnessed the seizure, there would be no point in her coming over.  Best to wait and see how she is in the morning, she said.  A sleepless night for me.

Next day Reba slept all day, as she normally does, but I did notice that when she woke up in the evening for her usual antics, she seemed very lethargic.  In fact, she remained that way for a couple of days.  I spent the whole weekend browsing the internet, looking for information about chinchilla seizures.  It seemed there could be three or four reasons, but the symptoms of her seizure seemed to suggest a calcium or thiamin deficiency.

Armed with this new information, I took Reba to the vet to ask for these possibilities to be investigated.  The vet, a man this time, looked her over, and listened to me describe what had happened over the weekend.  He had a look at her teeth, but saw nothing obviously wrong.  Checked her ears (poor balance is often a symptom of an ear infection)- no problems there.  He then pointed out, to my horror, that she was underweight.  She has always been a smallish chin, and since she’d always been in such perfect health, I had simply put her size down to genetics.  (There had been no sudden weight loss or anything)  Anyway, to cut a long story short, the vet, when I suggested the idea of some kind of deficiency, adding that I’d read about it on the internet, COMPLETELY dismissed my suggestions, saying that “you get a lot of rubbish on the net”.  Instead, he wanted to x-ray Reba’s jaw, but couldn’t do that till she gained weight.  So, for now, there was “nothing he could do”.

I was so distressed when I got home.  It was to be a waiting game.  And it was a long wait, believe me.  I wasn’t happy to do nothing, so I hunted in all the chinchilla forums on the internet for advice.  I have to say, many chin experts are pretty offended that a vet can so easily dismiss some of the very good advice to be had from the net, and I must admit, I did agree.  All the advice seemed to point to my trying to treat any possible deficiency myself as I fattened her up.  So, I did two things initially.  First, on the advice of a breeder in Belgium, I bought some vitamin drops which included thiamine (actually sold for human babies), and added them to her water. Secondly, I used only that bottled water which contains extra calcium.  By all accounts, both of these ideas could do nothing but help, and they certainly couldn’t do any harm.

At the same time, I started a diary.  For a few weeks I made entries daily, then gradually every few days.  I noted her weight, her behaviour and took note of any seizures and how severe they were.  She continued to have these seizures every three or four weeks, and sometimes she would have several in the space of a couple of days.

They ranged from minor “in a trance”- like behaviour to full body-curling (or sometimes arching), teeth-bared spasms, her whole body rigid, which were very alarming.  On the most frightening occasion, she went from one seizure almost immediately into another, overall lasting well over an hour. All I could do during a seizure was hold her gently to ensure she didn’t hurt herself, and speak softly and reassuringly to her.

After about a month, though, she began to gain weight, little by little, and the seizures appeared to occur less often.  I didn’t know if it was only by coincidence that she was improving, but I continued to give her the extra vitamins and calcium. I also stopped letting her out for exercise every single day, and made it every other day instead, and only for about a half hour to an hour - I had noticed that the seizures often occurred after increased activity on her part.

From March of last year till December, her weight continued to increase; in fact overall she gained 175g.  Her seizures gradually occurred less often, and to date she has had no more since the beginning of December 2001.  She now gets a regular half-hour / hour per night free play, and very much seems back to normal. A recent veterinary check-up resulted in her getting a clean bill of health!

I still monitor her weight, which has now stabilized, and it does now fall within the acceptable range for a chinchilla.  I don’t know to this day if she simply grew out of the seizures, but I’m not about to stop giving the vitamins and calcium to find out!  It has also occurred to me that it was the fact that she was underweight which precipitated the seizures (rather than the weight loss being a symptom of the seizures), though I never got to the bottom of WHY she was underweight in the first place. Similarly, as my diary revealed a vague 3 - 4 week pattern in the occurrence of the seizures, I wonder that the cause may have been hormonal, although by all accounts there is no real understanding of the hormone levels of chins. 

Fingers crossed we’ve seen the last of those seizures!

I have to say a very big thank you indeed to all those who made contact and offered advice during this time, particularly Crystal Chinchillas.

And finally a little advice from me: nothing beats the advice of a veterinary professional. Find yourself a GOOD vet who has plenty of experience with chinchillas, or at least is open to investigating the possibilities, and keeping up with current theory in the breeding world - a lot of breeders out there know what they are talking about!

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(Last Modified 29/11/2006 )