What is fungus?
The fungus that affects chinchillas are fungi that grow on the skin of the animal irritating first the outer layer of skin, and then deeper skin layers. This causes fur and/or whiskers to fall out and the animal to be quite uncomfortable. This can be similar to ringworm or athletes foot that people get and can be caused and spread the same way as well
How is fungus caused?
Fungi grow well in areas that are dark, moist, dirty and that have stagnant air. Areas such as these give the fungus a great start but the fungus does not have to start in the chinchilla unit to be a problem; air fans that bring air in from over wet manure piles for instance can bring in the disease. Another way is to bring in infected animals.
Fungus is an airborne disease, it can be spread through the air, by your hands, by a breeding male, sharing dustbaths or trays, etc.. Once a fungus is in a chinchilla unit and even after several animals are infected, it still needs reasonable poor conditions to survive. By this I mean that after a herd has fungus if cages are kept clean, humidity is low (below 70%) , air circulation is good and lighting is on during daylight hours, then the problem will be relatively easy to cure.
What does fungus look like?
The first signs of fungus are usually at the nose or tail area. Whiskers will break and skin around the nose or on the tail will look red, dry, irritated and flaky. The animal is often seen rubbing the infected area.
As the animal touches other animals or other parts of its body the fungus will spread in patches. The fur will fall out at the skin and the skin will have the typical symptoms described above.
Ranchers who can not decide if an animal has fungus or is chewing is usually not chewed off at the skin and the skin will not look infected. A real giveaway is when the fungus reaches an area of the body that the animal can not reach to chew.
Curing the problem.
The first step is to find the cause. If an individual animal is cured but the cause is still present, the problem will keep reoccurring. The rancher needs to discover whether the problem is the unit conditions (i.e. humidity, air circulation, cage cleaning schedule, etc.) or if it is a vented-in problem. I've seen several herds struggling with fungus because their air intake was coming from an area that had fungus growing.
Once the cause has been taken care of the problem can be treated. The affected animals' cages should be disinfected and the tray and dustbath should be kept to that cage.
There are different medications that can be used for treatment: Chinchilla fungus powder is a medicated talc powder designed for the chinchilla fungus problem, medicated athlete foot powder is sometimes substituted for this. A paste designed for ringworm or athletes foot can also be used.
A quite successful program is to treat the affected area daily for five days and also mix a table spoon of the powder in the bath. To treat the animal directly with powder, a makeup brush (blush brush) is a useful tool. When using paste or powder, be sure sto apply to affected and the surrounding area of about one half inch. Be sure to wash your hands after handling these animals to help prevent spreading the fungus.
Another agent often used is alcohol. This is applied directly to the fungus area. Alcohol does kill the fungus, but when used more than three or four times, it will irritate the skin. For this reason and the fact that it is effective only for a short period of time since it evaporates quickly, I prefer using fungus powder on the animal directly and in the bath.
When a herd is in real bad shape there is a treatment of a drug called griseofulvin (available and used by vets treating cows and horses). This should only be used in severe cases of fungus and only as a treatment, not as a prevention as breeding will be disrupted. As a matter of fact, it is best to take males out of breeding for some time before and during treatment. It is best to consult a veterinarian before using griseofulvin.
The best cure, of course, is prvention. By maintaining a reasonable cleaning schedule, good ventilationa and lighting, the rancher can prevent fungus from becoming a problem.
