rom the start, it was clear that Fuzzy was not eating. Fuzzy had been fed Charlie Chinchilla food (we consider this one of the worst possible chinchilla foods to feed), which he would not even touch. Fuzzy was taken to the vet, and it was determined that Fuzzy was impacted. While not obvious from the pictures above, Fuzzy had ingested large amounts of plastic due to chewing on the plastic shelves, ramps, and igloo in his cage.

These plastic fragments had gotten stuck in his digestive tract, causing a blockage to form.

Fuzzy was started on a regimen of motility drugs, as well as exercise and tummy massages. None of this seemed to work - for what seemed like eternity, there were no poos and Fuzzy seemed to be losing the battle. Finally, we saw poos (and you would not believe how happy you are to see poos when you have an impacted chin!). Eventually, Fuzzy did pass very small pieces of plastic, as well as the food that had become lodged behind.

Now that we were over the immediate issue of his non-pooping caused by his impaction, we noticed another problem - Fuzzy had a limp. So, back to the vet we went. An x-ray of Fuzzy's rear legs prompted our vet to ask us how long we'd had him, and how old we thought he was. We explained that we took him in as a rescue (this was about 3-4 months after we got him), and were told that he was, at the most, 2 years old. Our vet informed us that it was not possible that he was only two years old, as he had an injury that would have taken horribly long to heal. Somehow at his previous home, Fuzzy had broken his pelvis. Our vet stated that this sort of injury should have been obvious to his owners when it happened, but that nothing was done for him - and so his pelvis had healed (the bones had fused/grown back together), incorrectly, causing the limp. There was nothing that could be done for the limp, and it was not pronounced. However, we had wanted to see if it was a pressing issue (like a current broken leg) that could be fixed. As for his age, our vet said that it was more likely, based on the state of the injury, that Fuzzy was 5+ years old.

However, that was not the end of his health problems. During all of the above, we had been feeding Fuzzy critical care around the clock, as he would not eat or drink on his own. Once the impaction passed, we thought we were in the clear - but he still would not eat, at least not regularly. With Fuzzy's prior problems, he was weighed often to check his progress. It seemed that he would start eating on his own somewhat, and then would stop again. Then would start again, then stop again. And so the cycle continued. We jokingly started saying that if we looked at him wrong, he would stop eating - and it really seemed like that was the case. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason why he would randomly start and stop eating.

This went on for almost three years. During those years, we went through so much critical care it was ridiculous... but Fuzzy would eat it, but not his own food. He had been x-rayed and did not have teeth problems or maloclussion, so our vet was stumped as to what was causing Fuzzy to not eat on his own - it was not a health problem, per se. Eventually, someone suggested that we try other brands of food. We feed our herd Mazuri, but thought we would attempt to feed Fuzzy Oxbow chinchilla pellets. He didn't pick it up right away, but after some time, Fuzzy started (and continued) eating Oxbow completely on his own.

Somewhere amid all of this, it was noticed that Fuzzy had a calcium deficiency and that his teeth were white (chinchilla teeth should be orangish-yellow in chinchillas over 8 months of age). From then on, Fuzzy was supplied with cuttlebone to bring up his calcium levels.

As for the food problem, we discovered the "correct food" on my first week in Indianapolis (mid/late August 2007), where I moved to attend law school. Fuzzy had come with me -- we had actually brought him when we originally came to see the apartment, and explained to the staff how we rescued and he had to be hand-fed because he wouldn't eat (in order to get the "ok" to have a chinchilla in the apartment). The food breakthrough came as a complete surprise, and really was a breakthrough.

From that point on, we kept him on Oxbow, which he ate with no problem. While we were finally over the health hurdles, we started working on socializing Fuzzy. Part of our keeping rescues is making them as comfortable as possible. Because Fuzzy had his pelvis injury, he was unable to jump as high as other chinchillas - this made his cage a bit difficult, as he really did need his ramp, or shelves considerably closer together.

Over the first weekend I spent in Indianapolis at law school, we remedied this problem. I drew up blueprints for a custom melamine cage - one which would have shelves considerably closer together for Fuzzy's ease of getting around. With the help of a friend I had just met (and his drill), we build this cage over the course of a weekend. The small ledges you see on the right were intended to be "steps" which Fuzzy could use to get to the higher ledges and hammock.