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Post by darthchinchi on Jun 29, 2017 17:06:12 GMT
As you may know, chinchillas sometimes chew/bite their fur. This is not something we want, as it doesn't look nice.
It's mostly seen as a symptom af stress, but only if it's the soft fur and only if they chew themselves.
If the chinchilla is chewing on the fur on it's tail it's generally not as big of an issue, and it's hardly ever an issue if a cagemate is chewing fur on an other cagemate. Then we refere to it as overgrooming. When a chinchilla bites an other chinchillas whiskers however, it is refered to as dominance. Some even propose to cut the whiskers of chinchillas if they have certain behavioural issues one doesn't want, like being highly dominant.
What causes furbiting is not that well known. Some say it may be due to little enrichment, other say it's learned behaviour and the last idea is they are born with the tendency/genetics.
I got hold of some articles on stereotypic behaviour in mink at one point. I'll ad them as a reference when I find them in my papers at some point. (http://www1.bio.ku.dk/forskning/oe/adfaerdsoekologi/publikationer/ type ctrl+f to get a search menu in your browser (don't know how it works on MAC) and search for "mink")
It was found that stereotypic behaviour like furbiting doesn't necessarily point at a bad enviroment. Rather it can be a way for an animal to cope with the situation it is in. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. Some animals are prone to stress presumably because of their genetic makeup, just as we see in some humans. They make up coping mechanicms that may actually give them a higher standard of life as it reduses stress. Of course we do not want furbiting in animals we use for fur, not even if the fur aspect is out and they are just used for showing. So we breed for animals to not bite their fur. It may be positive to weed out lines prone to stress, but the question is if furbiting in it self is as big of an issue as some make it out to be. If we can add enrichment to the animals life and reduce the stereotypic behaviour this is something we should strive to do.
But if we have animals that tend to be more stressed than others, knowing stereotypic behaviour like furbiding may reduce their stress, it might not be a bad thing letting the animal chew, with out thinking the animal is sick.
If furbiting starts out of nowhere it is best to try and find the source that triggered the furbiting. Excessive furbiting can be a symptom of something wrong internally. This is not uncommen in other species either. As the animal can not pinpoint the problem, like an infection in the intestines, it can cause the animal to starte biting on the outside.
Slow starting furbiting where it looks to stay about the same or increases very slowly is more likely to be either stress related or learned behaviour. When breeding furbiting chinchillas, it is common for their kits to start furbiting as well. If the parent animal has a tendency to increased stress it is likley the kits will enherit this tendency as well, making them prone to furbiting plus the added likelyhood of the learned behaviour aspect from the parents.
As for the domination idea of whiskers chewing, I am personally not clear on how chewing whiskers would show the other animal whos in charge. As you may well know, whiskers are used as an added sence of touch, especially usefull when animals move around in the dark. On the other hand, animals who chew other animals whiskers are often know as dominant (or bitchy). This can be a sign that the animal tolerates stress poorly/is stressed, and therfore chew on the whiskers.
As a nailbiter myself, I know the different in textures, and how the texture of nails have a calming effect on me. I do not think it it farfetched to thing chinchillas may have the same type of preferences, be it over grooming, tail biting or whiskers biting. Some animals may even start chewing the bars in their cages but as this is rather unpleasnt to listen to, most owners will do what every they can to stop this behaviour.
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Post by yasmin on Jun 30, 2017 2:01:40 GMT
Very interesting.  |
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Post by randomname on Jun 30, 2017 7:06:53 GMT
This is fascinating Darth, thank you for posting. I haven't seen this behaviour in my guys, so I know very little about it. A lot of what you say makes sense to me in a very personal way.
If the whisker chewing is part of normal dominance behaviour, then I'd be inclined to dismiss it unless it's causing fights.
The fur chewing I would be worried about as I'd assume the chin was stressed or ill. I would probably look for ways to make the chin's life better - more toys, more outside playtime etc & to try to determine the cause of stress. I think any behaviour that gets repetitive & dominates their/our life should be looked at suspiciously. I know from personal experience what living a life full of compulsions does to your brain & it's a trap I'd hate to see my furry friends fall into as well. Giving in to compulsions becomes what you do instead of actually living. It's a half life at best.
In rabbits, the main concern about self fur pulling is ingesting the hair. There is a condition where the poops are full of hair (can also be from normal grooming) & this can cause blockage in the guts. Is this a concern with chin hair? Do they tend to ingest it, or would it be in the cage?
We see a lot of cage biting on the forum with degus, but haven't seen much with chinchillas. Again, I think a little bit is fine - a lot do it for attention or because they like the noise (those ones get a bird toy with a bell on from me, much nicer sound!) but if they were doing it all the time I'd be looking for ways to make their lives richer so they can be distracted from compulsive behaviour.
& oh my goodness, I've just re-read that last sentence - maybe I should take my own advice!!
These are just my opinions/ gut instincts on the subject, I have zero science to back it up. I suppose I work on a empathetic basis with behaviour issues. Have to say, I don't see stress behaviours from any of my guys (except an aggressive rabbit) so never really had to deal with these issues.
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Post by darthchinchi on Jun 30, 2017 10:37:17 GMT
That's a good question. I actually do not know if they ingest the fur or not.
I do agree that it would be best to find ways to reduce the behaviour.
On the other hand, if it's not a big thing stereotypical behaviour is common in most of us. Most have things they do. Like I bite my nails. Some fiddle with their hair. This is basically the same thing. One of my article actually mentioned a higher level of stress in mink wit no stereotypical behaviour at all, as far as I remember. That is a cool thought, that you get a way to relieve stress that's not overly compulsive but just makes your day better as a whole.
So I'm not saying just let the animals chew away, but maybe it's not always such a bad thing, if you have a skittish or semi-aggressive/overly dominant animal. If a bit of chewing on whiskers or grooming with a bit of fur chewing calms the animal, it might not be something to try and make them stop doing. Or if added enrichment doesn't stop it, it may not be that big of a problem, if the animal does other things as well.
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Post by moletteuk on Jun 30, 2017 13:26:36 GMT
I think there is a spectrum of behaviour where a particular activity can go from casual habit to coping strategy to a compulsion. I think this applies to chins, degus, humans and most things in between, I think it's currently quite a hot topic in humans where the line is drawn for a behaviour or characteristic to count as a mental illness.
Obviously I can only talk about my degu (and human) experience, but I think fur chewing is nearly always a symptom of something else, so it's pointless to try to stop the chewing, you can only look for and treat any possible cause of the chewing. (It's exactly like hygiene OCD, there's no pointing rationing soap and sinks, you can only treat the anxiety).
I've only seen self fur chewing in one degu, and that was Molly, she was chewing the fur on the inside of a back leg. We took her to the vet and to cut a long story short, the fur chewing turned out to be due to pain.
When my degus were very young Molly went through a phase of whisker chewing. She would sit in the middle with Flossie and Alice on either side of her. Flossie and Alice must have habitually sat on the same sides because one had her whiskers chomped only the left side and the other only on the right (in line with Molly sitting in the middle and chewing each side next to her). When my degus were young and sorting out the heirarchy their squabbling was fairly minimal and only involved sporadic boxing and vocal sounds, nothing more violent. Somebody mentioned recently that whisker chewing can be quite painful for the recipient, but I can't remember if they were talking about a different species. Perhaps there is an element of censoring the animal having their whiskers chewed - the dominant one is declaring that the others don't need to be fully aware of everything going on in the environment?
I've seen overgrooming now and again in my degus. It tends to show up in times of stress, usually if one degu has an injury or slight health issue they will begin overgrooming the others just in small patches on the back. I've always assumed this was an attempt to keep their social position and receive reassurance and personal validation from the grooming procedure. Molly was always noticeably more 'highly strung' and she was the main one for overgrooming, so I think there can be personality element.
I think it's important that we try to improve living conditions for any non-physically medical fur chewing or overgrooming of other degus (or other stress behaviour like obsessive bar chewing). My 3 degus (as was) have about 7 square metres of running space, but if they didn't, my first action would have been to improve space for them. The next step is to improve enrichment via accessories, healthy chewing opportunities and food variety. As I say, for my degus it made much more sense that the overgrooming was more a stress response than a boredom response, this is more difficult to help, but things like getting the best medical care to remove the main stressor, sticking to routines, avoiding too many strangers in the degu room, avoiding waving arms around etc were how I dealt with it.
I think we have a responsibility to give good consideration to what fur chewing and over grooming might be a symptom of and then take as many mitigating actions as possible. After we have explored all avenues I think that in quite a few cases we tend to conclude that it is just a habit, this comes up fairly frequently on the degu boards.
I hope nobody minds me sticking my two pence worth in based on degus.
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Post by zenaida on Jun 30, 2017 22:41:15 GMT
I'm not familiar with chins, and I'm still new to degus, but I can speak rather extensively about this topic for humans.
In my line of work behaviors such as this can be described in a couple ways. One of the most common is as "sensory seeking" or doing something because it just feels good to your senses. This can be intentional or unintentional. And YES stress can play a big role in it. Almost any "fidget" or "nervous" activity is one of these and it usually taps into the tactile, proprioceptive, or oral sensory systems of the body. Hand wringing and foot jiggling are both proprioceptive activities. Stroking or twisting hair is tactile. Biting nails and pens is oral.
These three sensory areas all have a calming effect on the nervous system, so it only makes sense that we do them when we are stressed. It makes even more sense that if the system is having trouble managing stress it does them even more, even to the point of damage (i.e. biting flesh instead of just nails, pulling hair out, not just tapping but kicking).
As already stated, there is neurological diversity in the human ability to cope with stress (sometimes referred to as resiliency) and on the less resilient side, we sometimes get extreme behaviors to manage it. That's where my job comes in, we try and help people develop less destructive and more socially appropriate coping mechanisms.
I want to talk way more about this, but I could go for hours and it sounds like you all already "get it". If anyone wants to get into a technical conversation about action potentials and neurological thresholds we can do that. If anyone wants a practical discussion about what to do to redirect behaviors we can do that too. I don't feel like there is much if any "stretch" to say that animals (at least most mammals) have a very similar neurological profile to humans and therefore are seeking out similar sensory activities to manage stress.
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Post by zenaida on Jun 30, 2017 22:56:52 GMT
I think it's currently quite a hot topic in humans where the line is drawn for a behaviour or characteristic to count as a mental illness. You are 100% correct: nail on the head with this statement based on my experience in the therapy industry. As one example, in the DSM-5 (the big book that at least in the USA is the "bible" for diagnosing anything mental illness) they have a specific diagnostic criteria for hair pulling. Trichotillomania I bring this one up because Nico experiences it as a side effect of his depression, so I'm pretty familiar with it. In his case he goes for his beard, in a couple specific spots. When he is "well" he doesn't do this, but he does love to stroke his beard. As he gets stressed, I can literally watch his force increase as he's stroking, he often doesn't even know. He starts not stroking, but also twisting a little, then he starts to pull at it a little. Eventually he gets to the point where he's pulling out. He isn't even AWARE he's doing this usually until I tell him or he has hair in his hands and not on his face. This doesn't happen all at once, but usually builds up over a number of weeks. If he gets really bad he'll just shave his beloved beard right off because that will stop the impulsive pulling and he doesn't want to risk permanently losing that hair due to the frequent pulling. So that's just him, obviously he manifests at a "clinical" level because he is doing it to the point of his own destruction (often if he is pulling it only makes him more upset which is sort of cyclical). But we all know people who stroke, twist, and tug at their hair, but never cross the line into self harm. Usually professionals can agree about the self harm line. The place where it gets blurry is when it isn't direct self harm, but maybe is interfering socially. Like would you miss a job opportunity because you were nervous in an interview and twirling your hair? That could be construed by the interviewer as either being flippant or perhaps they would interpret it as the interviewee can't handle stress. Therefore they pass over that person and hire someone else. In my profession I'm often trying to change people's social perceptions to benefit someone who can better manage with some grace extended. A good example of this is I'm often asking school teachers if they can allow my client to chew gum in class. It taps into their oral sensory system and can make a huge difference in their ability to pay attention to the lesson. Traditionally gum isn't allowed because it is a "distraction" or because it makes a mess, but for my clients it can make or break their need to have an IEP. When I can get the teacher to loosen their expectations it usually benefits everyone in the class (not just my client). |
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Post by Bexi87 on Jul 1, 2017 7:15:51 GMT
Is chewing hair as a child also similar? Apparently I was a nightmare for eating my hair and sleeves as a child!
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Post by darthchinchi on Jul 1, 2017 8:20:35 GMT
zenaidaVery intersting  I have a syndrom called Triple X, as I'm a mosaic it's rather 46xx,47xxx though. Basically we have a lot of things "wrong", that most people with out this syndrom may encounter in their lives. The difference is it clusters in someone with triple x. One of the issues is being highly sensitive and picking up on other peoples state of mind. I've personally worked a lot on knowing what's my feelings and what's the feelings of people I am very close to as I couldn't differenciate when I was younger. I'm well aware I relieve stress with my nailbiting. I have been thinking about doing something about it, but came to the conclution I really do not want to. It's not pretty to look at for others (when they notice that is), but other than that it doesn't harm anyone, least at all me. So I dropped the idea of getting rid of the habit. And a lot of things you say makes sense to me as I can tell if I'm more stressed than usual by looking at how much I bite my nails moletteukI don't believe it hurts when the whiskers are chewed. It's a special hair that's attatched to a specialised highly seneitive nerveending. They do shed their whiskers as well, so the whiskers themselves should not hurt. If you pull on them however, it might cause and issue bacause of the nerve/nerves they are attatched to. When chewing whiskers - what I've seen - both animals sit still and theres not really any pulling going on. The being chewed on might be able to feel it, but they feel everything their whiskers hit with out it causing them any pain.
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Post by zenaida on Jul 1, 2017 23:48:46 GMT
Is chewing hair as a child also similar? Apparently I was a nightmare for eating my hair and sleeves as a child! Yes! Chewing hair and clothing is a frequent occurrence with the kids I treat. I have one kid in particular who has done it for years. I can tell how much school is "pushing him" academically just by looking at his collar when he walks in the door. Usually we address it with redirection ("chew this, not that") and giving the child other coping strategies. |
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Post by zenaida on Jul 2, 2017 0:04:28 GMT
zenaida Very intersting I have a syndrom called Triple X, as I'm a mosaic it's rather 46xx,47xxx though. Basically we have a lot of things "wrong", that most people with out this syndrom may encounter in their lives. The difference is it clusters in someone with triple x. One of the issues is being highly sensitive and picking up on other peoples state of mind. I've personally worked a lot on knowing what's my feelings and what's the feelings of people I am very close to as I couldn't differenciate when I was younger. I'm well aware I relieve stress with my nailbiting. I have been thinking about doing something about it, but came to the conclution I really do not want to. It's not pretty to look at for others (when they notice that is), but other than that it doesn't harm anyone, least at all me. So I dropped the idea of getting rid of the habit. And a lot of things you say makes sense to me as I can tell if I'm more stressed than usual by looking at how much I bite my nails I won't butt into your habits and routines, but if you want to stop, I would recommend replacement instead of trying to "stop". Often "stopping" just compounds the stress and people give up and the "habit" becomes stronger. For instance with Nico, we have putty for him. I've replaced one hand activity with another that gives both tactile and proprioceptive stimulation. He mostly just uses the classic silly putty, but I also have "theraputty" in the house that's available to him. Theraputty is basically silly putty that comes in different colors and each color represents a "hardness" or "resistance". If he's having trouble with hair pulling, we break out the putty and he is supposed to keep it on hand so he can use it at any time. As a child I used to bite my nails lots. Now I fiddle with my rings and the chain of my necklace almost constantly. That's because I like the feeling under my finger nails. Depending on what sensation your body wants from nail biting, something like that could help, or maybe keeping gum or dried fruit on hand so you can chew it if you prefer something in your mouth. I had a co-worker who often got flavored "chew sticks" basically mint flavored tooth picks that he would chew most of the day. Totally up to you if you want to try to change it or not though! Nail biting doesn't bother me. I just like helping people know about alternatives they can try if they want. I almost wish I had your issues with sensitivity to others. I'm on the other end of the spectrum with that. I often have to work hard to perceive what others are feeling and I often "miss social cues". It's a big reason why I write such lengthy posts. I'm like this in real life because I'm spending a ton of energy to try and communicate clearly with those around me. It's also why I often edit my posts. I often re-read what I wrote and go back in to add something to clarify... |
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Post by darthchinchi on Jul 2, 2017 9:30:16 GMT
Nailbiting can have it's issues. As you mentioned it can become unhealthy where people bite off the entire nail and start biting the skin. It can cause issues with teeth and I do believe theres a higher risc of appendicitis. Thing is at some point it occured to me I only wanted to stop because others told me I should stop. I really do not want to stop. It's not an issue for me. I've tried fake nails but actually this bothers me. One time my nails even grew back out because of fake nails. I'm just so used to not being able to use my nails they catually annoy me when I do have nails that touches things - haha.
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Post by zenaida on Jul 2, 2017 10:16:45 GMT
Then bite away! One of these days I hope "society" will wake up and realize that our mental health crisis is a bigger problem than making people stop their habits.
Probably mostly comes from the sanitary movement... It was the whole historical movement that brought us things like toilets. Most of it was good, but there are public health arguments to be made that parts of it are bad. For instance the movement is largely based off the concept that bacteria are bad. We now know that there are "good" bacteria and "bad" bacteria and that we can wipe out the good with the bad. As I recall many "bad habits" were once ubiquitous (spitting in public anyone?). I wonder if statistically there is a big uptick in mental health issues once the movement took root... I should see if I can find that old history book, I remember really enjoying reading it...
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Post by deguconvert on Jul 6, 2017 21:11:51 GMT
Is chewing hair as a child also similar? Apparently I was a nightmare for eating my hair and sleeves as a child! Yes! Chewing hair and clothing is a frequent occurrence with the kids I treat. I have one kid in particular who has done it for years. I can tell how much school is "pushing him" academically just by looking at his collar when he walks in the door. Usually we address it with redirection ("chew this, not that") and giving the child other coping strategies. Both my kids went through all of elementary school (beginning grades) with shirts that had many holes around the collar. Didn't matter how often I replaced the shirts, they would come back home with holes in them. I would ask, but never received any feedback on it. Have always wondered if it were directly associated with stress. Now I'm rather peeved! |
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Post by zenaida on Jul 6, 2017 21:25:31 GMT
Yes! Chewing hair and clothing is a frequent occurrence with the kids I treat. I have one kid in particular who has done it for years. I can tell how much school is "pushing him" academically just by looking at his collar when he walks in the door. Usually we address it with redirection ("chew this, not that") and giving the child other coping strategies. Both my kids went through all of elementary school (beginning grades) with shirts that had many holes around the collar. Didn't matter how often I replaced the shirts, they would come back home with holes in them. I would ask, but never received any feedback on it. Have always wondered if it were directly associated with stress. Now I'm rather peeved! Let me clarify: I know it is a pattern of stress for this particular child based on the ebb and flow of how much he chews and it corresponding with what the school is doing. This particular child was in a general classroom and getting specialized education supports, but they really needed to be in a special education class with a much higher teacher to student ratio. They weren't making progress that year at all and his teachers started "pushing". There are many kids who chew because their mouths are still developing and it is not connected to stress at all. Don't fret about it, especially if your kids didn't have any delays in their development. Although, truth be told, based on the kids I see, school seems to be stressful no matter what the age. |
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Post by titchycatnipsandwich on Jul 8, 2017 19:29:35 GMT
zenaida, what would your suggested alternatives to nail-biting be? I am a biter, more so when work is stressful, and I'm 3 months into a 2 year long clinical diploma that is definitely adding to my stress-glass (my psychologist's description - you have a glass, and each individual stressor is a volume of water proportional to its stress - hence why tiny things can be a tipping point if big things are just bubbling away below the brim of the glass). Anyway, I personally dislike nail biting, I'm not happy with it as a habit, and use the nasty nail varnish stuff to remind me not to bite. Although then I just start picking instead, but I tend to do less damage picking... Anyway, I'd love to break the habit. No watches/bracelets or nail varnish on the ward, I've broken countless necklace chains from fiddling, and if I'm engrossed in something the bitter nail stuff does absolutely nothing to stop me biting - I don't care that it tastes awful if I'm completely ensconced in a book, for example. I have bought chew stick things from an autism-specialising shop, but then my stomach complains that I'm doing all this chewing and it's not getting fed. And if I ate something instead of chewing the stick or my nails, I'd be huge. Any suggestions you have at all, I'm open to trying. Alcohol gel stings like murder when you get it into the nail beds of your too-short-bitten nails, and it looks unsightly. The stress isn't going away any time soon, and I'd like to still have fingers left at the end of the diploma 
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Post by darthchinchi on Jul 9, 2017 18:10:58 GMT
Fake nails. I wanted to bite after they got removed. My nails did grow out though and they say you need about 3 weeks to loose a habit. You need them done by a pro who specialises in nail-biting or they won't stick.
I've also thought about hypnosis as some had great luck with that.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2017 19:26:47 GMT
Said nail techs will secretly swear about you once you've left 😂
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Post by titchycatnipsandwich on Jul 9, 2017 19:40:58 GMT
Fake nails not allowed in clinical areas either. Some pharmacists still wear them, but knowing my luck I'd spend a fortune getting them done properly and then infection control would pop up on my ward the next day...
Emily, have you any thoughts? You must have seen many nail biters in your time.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2017 20:08:06 GMT
Fake nails are just as clean as natural nails so I've never understood the issue. You could rip your natural nail off and it land somewhere more likely than you would losing a fake nail. You'd also know about it if you lost a fake nail lol.
I do extensions for nail biters and I bloody hate doing it if I'm blatantly honest as I charge the same and it's extremely hard work. Most after a few months end up messaging me saying they aren't having them done any more as they've started doing something else i.e. picking skin, grinding teeth, biting toenails, scratching/picking scalp (which is what I do), pulling hair.
If you can control the amount you nail bite, it's not one of the worst issues to have. It will damage your nails, make your nails breeding grounds as they're moist and warm constantly from being in your mouth. Most people can't control it and end up biting for years and years and end up working their way up their nail bed until they have literally no nails left at all, just fleshy stumps. See that a lot.
I pick my scalp. My fake nails prevent me from doing it, which is why I always try to keep them maintained. As soon as they're not on, I pick my scalp. I make it a hideously sore bloody mess too.
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