Chins & Other Pets: a Precautionary Tale

I admit that it can be cute at times to see your chinchilla interact with other pets in the home, but here is what happend to us when someone let their cats interact with their chins.

We found out that the woman was letting her cats attack her chins. She recounted on a forum that her cat attacked Bella, and then later, in a messenger conversation, she recounted out another of her cats almost ate Cheeko. What she did not tell us--maybe she didn't know--is that her cats had kennel cough (bordetella).

We paid for our partner rescue to drive over to Kansas to pick the chins up, which she did in the middle of winter. She came home with 6 chins, and set them up in quarantine. Everything was going fine for 28 days. We decided to try introducing Cheeko and one of her chins, Munchie. A week later, Munchie was dead. He did not have any symptoms other than a single sneeze. We sent him off for a necropsy and waited. While we were waiting, the other chins started to get sick, gasping for breath, making clicking noises while they breathed, sneezing. Some of them had boogers coming out of their noses.

She rushed two of them to the vet, and one of them, Chinnie, died on the way there. The other chin, Muffin, was still alive, and she decided to give her the chance to fight for her life. The vet prescribed medication, and she went home. She started to medicate every animal. There were 18 chins and 30 rats, 3 rabbits, a mouse and 2 dogs.

A few days after that, the results of the necropsy came back. Munchie had died from bordetella. We went into overdrive. We had three vets conferencing on the phone with each other, called each other and the vets, ordered expensive medicine, critical care.

No one had heard of this affecting pet chins before. There are some ranches that have had bordetella outbreaks. Some have let the disease run its course, others have fought it. There was no set way to proceed, no set medication to prescribe. The vets couldn't tell us what the long-term effects were, though the ranchers and breeders did tell us that chinchillas do not become carriers of the disease. Due to the extreme nature of the illness, we all assumed we were fighting a losing battle. A generous doctor donated the Baytril, which alone would have cost us almost $2000. Barb started bleaching everything--cages, walls, ceilings, floors. For two weeks, she had to handfeed, medicate and monitor all the animals herself (at the time she was too far away. We were in Florida, and she's in Michigan).

After the two weeks was up, she had lost 3 chins, I lost one, she lost several adult rats, three litters of kits (baby chins). There was so much death, it was so unexpected, that the grief was overwhelming.

It was not over, though. Barb's rescue, her entire household, had to be under quarantine for 4 months. During that time, no animals could leave her rescue, and none could come in.

These chins were exposed to bordetella (kennel cough) at their old home, and since it is not usual for chinchillas to get, we are unsure of how it affects them. We had been working with the assumption that it's a lot like the chicken pox virus in humans--something a chinchilla can have, but is dormant in her body. The chicken pox can become active when people are adults (shingles), and so, to err on the side of caution, we assumed that bordetella, if it can be dormant, could also be awakened. Since the only truly reliable way to test for the presence of bordetella in chinchillas is a lung biopsy (unless mucous is present in the nose), we (and our vets) will not test the chins for it. However, our current vets are very knowledgeable about bordetella, and they explained that they do not believe chinchillas become carriers, because it is not in the nature of the disease.

This is what our vet told us: Bordetella is a primary infector. It doesn't really cause any issues in the animal, what causes illnesses are secondary infections. Bordetella can weaken the system, which opens the way for secondary illnesses to step in. The secondary illness can be an upper respiratory infection (as in dogs and cats), it can be pneumonia, it can be something else that affects the lungs and airways of animals. The secondary infections are the threat to chinchillas (as they are to other animals).

I think a good way to explain it is using chemotherapy as an example. When someone has cancer, they get chemotherapy to treat it. The chemotherapy weakens the immune system, and that allows other illnesses to take advantage of the person. They are more susceptible to colds, pneumonia, the flu. The chemo isn't what causes cold symptoms, the cold does. But chemo opens the way for the cold to set in, because it weakens the immune system. Bordetella acts like chemo in that way.

If/when chinchillas get bordetella, it is deadly. The bordetella, along with the secondary infection, overwhelm the chinchilla's system. It is fast-moving, and it is hard to treat a seriously ill chinchilla successfully. The survival rate for chinchillas that have bordetella along with a secondary infection is very, very slim. It's around 10%. When someone has a bordetella outbreak, you know, because the number of chins who get it and then die are very high.  

I have always been anti-predator/prey interaction. It is not normal or natural for a predator to interact always in a friendly or benign manner with a prey animal. Even predators that have been with prey their whole lives can harken to natural instincts and strike without warning.

Cheeko Isaac

Cheeko getting squishy-hugs from Marne.

Cheeko also came to us on July 12, 2008. He was born in December 2003. Cheeko was a rescue that was taken in by the woman who had the other chins. Before she took him in, he was supposedly fed nothing but pumpkin seeds. I can see he has a slight hunch, but being as all five chins had them when they were rescued in February, that's really not verification that the pumpkin seed claim is true.

At his last home, the owner let her cat Neptune pick Cheeko up in his mouth as though he were going to eat him! This is the reason Cheeko's Jewish name is Isaac. In Genesis, Isaac was bound by Abraham. He was spared by the intervetion of angels/God. Clearly, Cheeko survived Neptune's attack, and I can only believe it was by similar intervention. Cheeko is very sweet and loves getting chest scritches. He'll watch tv for hours. He's a bit skittish about being picked up (but after what he's been through, who wouldn't be?!), so we're working on that with him.

Cheeko is going to be here for life. He's been scarred by his life up until this point, and the best assurance of a happy future is for him to stay here. We're the 5th people to have him (at least), and so to preserve his ability to bond with people, he is staying.

Eva Rebekkah

Eva also came on July 12, 2008. She was born October 19, 2006. When she was a kit, she lost her right eye. It was sewn shut by the breeder, and she was eventually sold to the lady we rescued her from. At some point, the thread was groomed out, and the eye, not being flushed as it should have been, became infected. We believe (but are not 100% certain) that the bordetella entered her eye while in that home, and as a result, Eva got severe pneumonia (one of the symptoms of bordetella). She survived this, and January 2008, we paid to have her eyelid sewn shut. Unfortunately, that vet never explored Eva's eye socket, she just cut the lids and sewed them shut. (Vet's cut the lids so that two "exposed" pieces of skin grow together into one piece).

We discovered at the end of February 2009 that Eva's eye hadn't been properly removed by the last vet. That vet sewed the eye and tear ducts in behind her lids. It got infected, because it couldn't be flushed out. Eva got pneumonia again, though we caught it very quickly and she only had it in one lobe of her right lung. After a two-week course of Trimeth-Sulfa, Eva recovered. A week after that, she went in for eye surgery, where our vet discovered the atrophied eye. He removed it and her tear ducts, flushed out her eye socket, and sewed her eyelids shut properly. She now has a bright future ahead of her, with our vet saying he's 95% confident that she'll never get pneumonia again.

Eva is a wonderful girl, very friendly and social. She loves to watch Go, Diego, Go and Lilo and Stitch on tv. She always comes up for scritches. She's got a great personality. Of course, she's not very keen on being picked up, but we've got no problem working on that with her.

Eva is going to stay here permanently because of her past medical issues.

Sebastian Jacob

Sebastian came on July 12, 2008, as well. He was born September 1, 2006. He's friendly and cuddly. He just loves chest scritches, and he really doesn't mind being picked up, either. He loves to sit in his fleecy tunnel and watch tv.

Sebastian is a wonderful chin that loves the comforts of fleece. He's very social. Sebastian is laid back and loves to have mutual playtimes with Wubbzy. 

Poodah Abraham

Poodah came to us on July 12, 2008. He was born June 8, 2006. Poodah's a very energetic chin who loves his wheel. He's always been rather mousy and small, but in the past month and a half, he's put on 100 grams of muscle. His hunch has all but disappeared, and he's becoming much less hyper. He loves to get chest scritches, and loves to come up to me and have conversations. 

Since he has been here, we've discovered that Poodah is the happiest when he is the only chin in the cage. He does have a rather anti-social personality when it comes to other chins. He was picked on by another chin, and he does hold a grudge from the experience.