I'm Jess, I'm 22 years old, and I'm from the Boston area.
I got my first chinchilla, Chinny, as a birthday present. I had been talking about how much I want a chinchilla the whole summer before, and spent a lot of time doing research on them and sending cute pictures of them to my friends through IM. Anyway, they ended up chipping in to get a chinchilla off of craigslist. When my friend first got her, the person she got her from just handed her to her, without a cage or anything! Chinny lived for a few days under my friend's boyfriend's desk, while she searched for a cage for her. She ended up chewing through quite a few wires, and also got quite cozy in bed with her boyfriend lol. When I finally met Chinny, it was love at first sight! Luckily, she had a cage by then. Unfortunately, my friend did not get any information about her, and refused to ever contact the seller again (very strange), so I have no idea how old she is or anything else. I estimated that I got her at 4 months to 2 years, but really have no clue. She is a very lovely standard grey.
Anyway, Chinny seemed very lonely in her cage by herself. Everyone thought she could really use a friend. So, I posted up an ad on craigslist that I was looking for a companion for my chinchilla. I got contacted by a woman whose daughter transferred schools and could no longer keep her chinchilla. She was trying to be very picky about who ended up with her chinchilla, so I did the best I could to answer her questions, and was afraid I couldn't live up to her standards since I was very new at owning a chinchilla. Anyway, things worked out in the end, and I took in Bella, a velvet chinchilla (I believe tan velvet) that originally came from a breeder. Up to that moment, I had no idea that chinchillas had breeds, and really came in fur other than grey really. We kept Chinny and Bella separate for a while. We'd put them in each other's cages alone to warm them up to each other's smells, etc. In the end, they ended up getting along VERY well! Chinny was very shy before, and she became quite outgoing with the introduction of Bella, since Bella was a very adventurous chinchilla.
The two of them have been living together for almost a year. They had a nice big cage, but ended up chewing through the plastic pan at the bottom. Toward the end, they were escaping all the time, so we had to buy an all metal cage. After doing a lot of research, we ended up with a ferret nation, which was a lot bigger, and also chew proof! With so much space, we casually thought about adding another chinchilla, but never really went forward with the decision.
Well, a month or so later, I finally brought the chinchilla's previous cage to a local shelter, and decided to browse through, since I love looking at animals. I found the chinchillas, and fell in love with a little 9.5 month old female named Thunder Buns. She was an adorable little black velvet (not ebony, like I'd previously thought... since she does have a white belly). She had a pending adoption, but luckily, that never went through. I put myself as a backup adopter, and got approved! Of course, I had to change the name, since Thunder Buns is just... strange. I decided to name her Bebe (pronounced Bee-Bee) since she just looks like a Bebe. She is so sweet, and very quiet so far. We are hoping that the other chinchillas will be able to take her under their wings one day. For now, she is just living by herself.
Chinny playing when she first came home.
Bella and Chinny getting to know each other.
Bella and Chinny living together! I love Chinny's face in this picture.
No pictures of Bebe yet, because my camera is at my friend's house. But I'll get some eventually.
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Topic: Hi, everyone! (Read 1416 times)