I have two relatively unusual small animals as pets. About 2/3 weeks ago I noticed the female looking huge, saw her stomach moving, and was convinced she was pregnant. A few days later she seemed to go into labour but no sign of any babies. Took her to my local vet, who said she was too old to be pregnant, it felt like a tumour and in his opinion "I could buy 3 new pets for the cost of surgery on her so why bother.". Wasn't happy at this, so found a vets 20 miles away supposedly specialising in small animals. Took her there. They also said, no babies, feels like a tumour, and arranged a scan tomorrow for her. Also gave me antibiotics to give her in the meantime incase she had an infection. Today, I got up to find she had given birth to 3 babies during the night and all were dead. I'm really annoyed at the vets - that each examined her, missed a triple pregnancy, talked to me about euthanising her, gave her unnecessary medication and left her ill and in pain for weeks! Aibu to complain that they both missed such a simple thing or is it just 'one of those things'?
AIBU?
To be mad at vets for missing this
Ipushedmygrannyaffabus · 29/04/2016 01:59
If two specialist vets missed it...the odds are it really wasnt obvious.
If they had discovered she was pregnant what difference would it have made? Can they do c-sections, or bring o premature labour in a small animal?
Would they have just let nature run its course anyway?
I can understand why you are upset over your poor pet though. I hope she recovers well 
.
Omg yes i would complain especially about that callous comment!
I took my hedgehog to have an op, no doubt i could have gotten a couple if rabbits for the cost but i would have gone off if someone had said that to me 
I took my hedgehog to have an op
They are cute but do they let you get close? How do you hold it?
I haven't seen a hedgehog in 20 years.
Obviously meant to be how awful for you! Not how awful for you? Stupid 2am!
I'd be looking into suing them, just out of spite for their callous attitude since money seems to be the only language they speak. I used to have Chinese hamsters which are apparently considered an exotic pet 
and spent over £200 having one of them kept on subcutaneous fluids in an oxygen tent to try and save him after a bad reaction to the sedative they give for routine procedures. Sadly he never recovered and had to be put down but I would have spent 3 times that if it would have saved him. The vets could not have been kinder to him and did everything they could to help him. He cost me £7 from pets at home. It isn't the monetary value of a pet or their size that counts and I would expect all vets to realise that every life matters or what the hell are they doing working with animals?
I don't know anything about chinchillas but I do have guinea-pigs (who are also considered to be "Exotics" )
You have two chinchillas (presume male/female unless you've just got them recently) so a tubby female having been in contact with a male, yes pregnancy is an obvious diagnosis.
They can live 20+ years so I read, no idea what "Too old for pg" in chinchilla years is.
Did you take her to Vet#1 2-3 weeks ago? (Gestation about 110-112 days she would've been well into her pg)
Very at the "could buy another 3, why bother" it's your choice with the vets opinion, but at the end of the day as the owner, you have final say. Wether that is surgery or PTS.
Did you have insurance which would cover any surgery (academic I know, knowing it wasn't a tumour)
Really both vets I'd be angry at. The first one for the attitude . And if they weren't sure about a case they should refer you on.
The second one, missed pg. They might not have had access to the scan when you went there, but was there an option given to keep her overnight?
Not sure if the antibiotics would have harmed the babies, if they were given such a short time before would they have got into the placenta?
I really don't think you can pass this off as 'one of those things' though.
Very 
,
This happened to me as a child with my guinea pig! Exactly the same!
No advice, but for you; I'll never forget finding the little baby.
I would complain too. How bloody awful for them to have missed that :(
However, I'll add that you really need to call around a few vets and find a proper specialist ASAP. It was the first thing I did when we knew that we would get pet rats, you never know when you'll need one unfortunately :( We needed to take our original two boys within a week of getting them 
And we had an emergency within 6 weeks of ownership too. If there are any exotics groups on FB located near you then join them and ask for recommendations, even if you go onto ferret/rat/GP groups you'll likely find a few people who have chins as well who could reocmmend somebody.
I missed the comment of buying more for the price of surgery How fucking awful. Really really do complain. They don't deserve to work with animals the bastards. I've had that from family and people who don't think but a vet? FFS. My current vet thinks I'm a bit mad spending so much on my mischief but, despite the fact that we have had disagreements on courses of action for one of my rats particularly (he is epileptic and has other needs, she wanted to PTS him very early on, he's still here 18months later!), she has always respected my decisions and given me balanced arguments for and against any treatment options. She's not actually a rodentologist like the last one but she's obviously well read on them!
That's a dreadful thing for a vet to say, I'd definitely complain. So sorry to hear about your chinchilla, hope she's soon well.
for Leelu " They are cute but do they let you get close? How do you hold it?"
Carefully 
We have them in the garden occasionally, this one was an underweight juvenile male so couldn't hibernate. He lived in a bucket in front of our Aga until there was a place available for him at the sanctuary, where he wintered fine and was released into the wild the following year.
mrsnippy If you don't mind me asking, what was wrong with the rat? I don't think we've ever gone above £150 for surgery before and that was emergency surgery! Our veterinary practice obviously care for our rats too, we tend to see the same two or three staff members and the same vet and they love to see how they're getting on,, it's really nice. We're in there at least once a month though We were last there a couple of weeks ago and I've got to take the same rat back again today!
Rattie he had a severe URI that wasn't responding to the usual treatments, our vet at that time wasn't a rodentologist (we have one now) and I could see he wasn't going to make it without some specialist intervention so we pushed for a vet school referral. They were marvellous, he was there for a week and came back almost like new. He had a a couple of anaesthetics, xrays, ICU nursing, hospitalisation etc. Sadly though, we lost him a month later to a pituitary tumour. He was one of our first group so we were new to the rat world and know much more now - now we also know about ratty insurance
I know people thought and still think that we were crazy, that he was "just a rat", but he wasn't - he was OUR rat and we adored him.
Bless him. We've got one who has had URIs since we got him, his brother did too but he died in November (he got a retrobulbar abscess and didn't make it through the enucleation ) I never thought that we could do more for him apart from the occasional round of meds to bring it down to 'normal'! They both react/ed to everything, we had them on wood shavings for a while as it was the only substrate that they didn't react to oddly! The others were on normal ratty substrate! Then we moved them to fleece/vetbed.
We haven't bothered with insurance for any of ours but we do keep at least £50 per rat for any treatment they may need and top it up each month if we use any such as the £80 I've spent in the past two weeks on Ashi When we looked into it we found that the insurance would have cost us more than the usual trips to the vet. We have 8 at the moment and have £450 set aside, enough to cover 3 emergency ops and some routine trips!
We get told we're mad and that they're "just rats", my parents friend 'breeds' rats for snake food and my Dad goes on and on about why do we pay £15 for a rat when his mate can give us as many as we want for free? And why do we take them to the vets when they are just rats? They only live for a couple of years....
I still have a little cry occasionally when I think about my old boy dying in November, it was somewhat horrific. He was nearly two but it was not his time to go. The vets didn't charge us for the op that time despite the fact that they'd actually finished sewing him up when he gave up. Lovely vets (and they probably didn't mind given that we spend so much there!)
We lost our old lady rescue in January, she was at least three years old and we'd nearly had her two years, she was lovely and ironically only went to the vets about three times in her life! Compared to our breeder rats who've had plenty of trips! The vet was so apologetic when she said it was probably time to say goodbye, it's nice to know that they do care.
We're relocating in September and I'm really going to miss our vet! Not looking forward to finding a new one!
leelu66 blank nope no gloves but not wild hedgehogs either!
She was an African pgymy hedgehog.
They're easy to handle when you get used to them.
When they're happy they flatten their spines
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Id be looking into suing them, just out of spite for their callous attitude since money seems to be the only language they speak.
How do you come to that conclusion Alexa444 when the vet specifically told her not to waste her money on surgery?
If money was the only language they speak they would have happily done surgery just to charge to OP for it.
Also you cant sue someone just because they piss you off or upset you, you actually have to have a quantifiable financial loss in order to sue and claim it back.
OP find an exotic vet and I hope she is feeling better now. That vet was an arse.
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