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Post by chinsight on May 17, 2015 19:05:17 GMT
So today was park day and chins were running naked all over the place. We use to harness the female but she doesn't go far so now we just let them run free. Here is a picture of the male and you can see how great his eyes look. He still has the cataracts BUT it is not a bright thick white and completely covering his entire eye and he is definitely not blind. He gets his drops 2-3 times a day. Will continue as usual. He was so alert and loves being outside in the grass and wind. He's a new mouse. The female is so excited he gets to join her. Its mouse magic.
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Post by moletteuk on May 18, 2015 10:21:39 GMT
Are we looking at your avatar pic? I love his whiskers! (You can post other pics if you host them on Photobucket or similar first and use the IMG tags)
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Post by chinsight on May 18, 2015 18:01:42 GMT
Yes the avatar picture. I had to cut out about 9 feet of his whiskers to fit him as my avatar. I tried to post other photos of him in photobucket and didn't get very far. I'm not sure what an IMG tag is but I will look it up. I'm thinking its a link to the pictures.
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Post by moletteuk on May 18, 2015 19:47:12 GMT
There is an instruction video in our picture area for posting photos. Basically you upload the pics to photobucket and then when you click on each picture in Pbucket there are some boxes stacked with bits of code in them, you copy and paste the bottom one (labelled IMG) and just paste it into your reply box on here. I look forward to seeing all of his whiskers
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Post by chinsight on May 19, 2015 18:55:57 GMT
s1148.photobucket.com/user/chinsight/library/?sort=3&page=1I'm hoping by just posting this link it will take you to the photobucket pictures. I don't have any from when I first started his drops but I do have a few in there as he was continuing his treatment. He still has cataracts but they are so much smaller and less and less white.
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Post by moletteuk on May 20, 2015 11:23:23 GMT
Yeah, that works. What gorgeous pics, and amazing to see them outdoors, I love the speckled ears There's only one pic on the second page where I can really see the cataracts at all, although maybe the reflection off the centre of the eye coincides with the remains of the cataract on some pics.
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Post by natnat899 on May 20, 2015 15:08:53 GMT
Aww, I love the pictures - they look so carefree hopping around, having fun! I wish I could do that with my little rascals, but they would run off and I would never get them back, lol
How is he doing now then - within himself?
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Post by chinsight on May 20, 2015 20:07:59 GMT
You know.... Because i wasnt thinking I took those pictures with the flash on so it may be a reflection. I will take them again this week with the flash off and post again. Sometimes the cataract is noticeable and other times hardly at all. I'm not sure if chins have multiple lenses and they can move the cataract around. The pictures posted at the end are sort of blurry but that's a few weeks into his eyedrops. We noticed a big difference right off with beginning the drops, and he just keeps on improving. What's strange is the female runs into things the tree, the paper bag etc... And she has no cataracts. The male maneuvers carefully around and hits nothing. But the male definitely did a big change back to his old self. And now that we take them to the park he's coming even more alive. They are so funny running around. We were worried they would bolt away but they don't. In fact they always check where we are and come running back. If we walk away they come chasing after us. A lot of the time they hang out around our feet. They tire out quickly and want us to pick them up so they can relax. Then they wnt to be put down so they can run again. What's good about chins is that if you can put them in a big enough park if they do run away they will tire out quickly and u can catch them quite easily. They don't have that endurance to keep going. The female was so comical when she first started running. She would run like a linebacker. Using her front arms the pull herself through the grass. Now this last Time she's discovered her powerful her back legs are and she hops barely using her arms. She realistically didn't know how to run correctly.
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Post by natnat899 on May 21, 2015 15:35:44 GMT
I sort of see the cataract, but it is difficult to know if it's the flash or not, the main thing is that he is getting better and the treatment is working for you. Aww, Peanut is a little bit like that, he will hop towards me as if to say hello, but they are still young and free he gets tired easily but Pickle never seems to tire out - once we get them back into the cage he will still run on his wheel, lol Haha, aww - how sweet, they are funny little things!
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Post by moletteuk on May 21, 2015 16:22:30 GMT
Is there a chance the female has a different vision problem? Or here's another idea, I wonder if she has difficulty with the UV light of daytime, with them being nocturnal and also with house windows cutting out most UV light, so she won't be used to it?
Is it common for them to tire out quickly? Are they less keen on wheels or running saucers than degus?
Do they eat any of the plants or grass in the park?
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Post by natnat899 on May 21, 2015 22:31:56 GMT
It could be a vision problem, chinchillas are actually crepuscular rather than nocturnal, so they are most active at dawn and dusk. It could be the light, but I suppose it depends what she was like beforehand.
Peanut is a larger chinchilla compared to Pickle, who is very agile; so I would say it depends on their build. My degus (particularly Moon) definitely use the wheel more than the chinchillas, but the chins use it at night, whereas the degus are more active during the day so it could just be that I don't see them use it as much.
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Post by chinsight on May 23, 2015 0:53:04 GMT
"Peanut is a little bit like that, he will hop towards me as if to say hello, but they are still young and free." Yes yours are still young I think that makes a big difference. Ours are older now and they want to hang with their owners but when they were young (like teenagers) they wanted to be anywhere except with us. Also the male was starting to bite and be moody and mean. So we had him fixed when he was about 2 yrs old and he really calmed down and became a big ball of love. He is still super territorial. He yells at us and throws us out of his cage if he and his woman are not up for visitors. Is there a chance the female has a different vision problem? I wonder if she has difficulty with the UV light of daytime. Yes, I think its 2 things with the female and her sight. One is that even when its cloudy outside its still super bright and her being a red eyed chin, and spending so many years indoors, usually only going out at night, I think that day blinds her. We need small dark chinchilla glasses for her or some blue blocker sunglasses. The second thing is her eyes are so far on the side of her head I think she has a huge blind spot when looking head on. The male's eyes are so big and now with his cataracts dissolving he doesn't miss a thing. I couldn't be more pleased with his progress and really he doesn't fuss much at all with his eye drops. Is it common for them to tire out quickly? Are they less keen on wheels or running saucers than degus? Yes, but only because they haven't built up any endurance. When we first starting to let our male run in the house we erected a ladder with storage bins so he could come and go out of his cage when we were watching TV. He would run around for a few minutes and then go back in his cage to sleep for 10 minutes and come back out and run around again. He finally got tired of trudging back to his cage and up the storage bins he would just conk out on the couch between my mom and I for awhile and be off and running again. Eventually he would run more and rest less. It will be the same thing with the park. The female runs around a lot more. We are just careful because they over heat rather quickly with those fur coats so we take them before 9 am. In now 20 minutes they are worn out. Then we air condition them in their grocery bag on the way home. We actually transport them in that whole foods bag (the bag in the photobucket picture) and it works amazingly well. They are not much on the wheel running. Last summer it was super hot and even with the air on in the house they wouldn't run around, so we got the box fan put it on the floor on high and they started running around and when they heated up they would stop in front of the fan and cool off and then run again. Do they eat any of the plants or grass in the park? Surprisingly no. There is clover patches in the park and the male loves clover but when they are running around they won't eat anything. They will only eat in their cage. Although, the first time we took the male out he picked up a piece of wood by the tree and started gnawing on it and then stopped and flung it away in disgust. We were perplexed and then we thought maybe a dog peed on the wood and thats the wood he had. LOL!
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Post by chinsight on May 23, 2015 0:58:30 GMT
It has been raining so much here in Texas we haven't taken the chins out, but when it stops for a day or so we will take them out again and I will take more pictures without the flash and post them.
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Post by chinsight on May 25, 2015 0:09:29 GMT
Took the chins out this morning and it was sooooo wet and muddy. The ground couldn't soak up anymore water from our daily rains. We found a sort of dry patch and then decided it was too wet for them to stay. We went to pick them up they took off and refused to come back because they knew they would have to go home. They wanted mud and playtime and nothing to do with us. So the pictures aren't that good but i have a couple of good ones. I will try and take more this week indoors and outdoors. s1148.photobucket.com/user/chinsight/library/?sort=3&page=1
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Post by moletteuk on May 27, 2015 10:48:58 GMT
Love the pics by the tree
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Post by chinsight on May 27, 2015 18:14:45 GMT
Bebzee is such a little model. When we first got her it looked like she modeled for skinny squirrel magazine. Now she's more into the full figure modeling.
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Post by Kins on May 29, 2015 15:34:56 GMT
Seriously adorable pictures! I do love chinchillas, they are so beautiful.
I would be terrified of having them lose in the park though *eek*
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Post by chinsight on May 30, 2015 17:37:45 GMT
My mom was COMPLETELY against bringing Bebzee to the park. That's why I bought the harness for her. When I finally got her to agree, we were ready to run all over and try and catch Bebzee, divert her, or have her just completely run away. But that wasn't what happened Bebzee's (Betty) never felt grass and she was much more nervous than we were. She really loosened up when we finally brought the male with us, she was ecstatic jumping all over him and loving him up, it was so sweet. So now they run around together sometimes apart but never try to run away. That may change as they get more use to it but we will see. Who we have to be real careful of are the squirrels. The couple of young squirrels are so curious about the female chin, one comes 1/2 way down the tree to watch her. He/she just can't figure out what Bebzee is, so we keep both of them away because a squirrel would kill in a chin in a second. And the enjoyment that these two get from just being chins and "free" is priceless. Once you go to the park you can never go back to life before the park. We would just take Betty for walks at night in the neighborhood before we even dreamed of letting her run free. She was terrified to be outside even though we carried her. We thought well she won't want to do that again. And then she would see us getting ready to go for a walk and jump all over her cage and bite the bars so we took her again, she was scared of the night but she also loved it and eventually it turned into what we have today. Both of them have grown so much. Same thing with the car rides. Terrified..... but then wanted to go again. LOL! She likes going to Petco and Petsmart because its her version of going to the zoo.
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Post by chinsight on May 30, 2015 17:57:49 GMT
I know I said this before but she was a rescue. Abused, starved, smelled, sick, and barely let anyone touch her for the first 2 yrs. She would just cower in the cage. Our male really helped her because all he ever knew was love and kisses, warm bed, and food. She would hear a noise and freak out and he wouldn't even react. She just wanted to escape and run away. She s-l-o-w-l-y learned from him to calm down. Then we started showing her youtube videos on the computer, taking her for walks, taking her for car rides and now she's the bravest, little ego driven, bold, demanding, chinchilla ever. Nothing scares her. She's like 15 ounces now and conquers everything in her path.
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Post by natnat899 on Jun 2, 2015 8:10:11 GMT
Aww, bless her - I would love to do that with my chins, I would just be terrified that they would escape, lol! Haha, they are strange things - I hope she tells you what she wants in petsmart Where did you get her from? - that's terrible. She is lucky to have such a caring and loving owner, she has flourished One of my chinchillas is very timid, how did you know she was ok to take outside?
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