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Q & A / Getting new friend(s) for my 14 year old chin.
« on: December 10, 2016, 08:36:26 AM »
Hello everybody,
Sadly, last Monday my female chinchilla (Basted) died. She was 12 years old and I am not quite sure what was wrong. She was very weak and just lying on her side and died soon after. I don't think it was anything contagious because my other chinchilla named Ptah seems fine (except that he seems very sad en lonely).
I'm writing this post because of Ptah, he seems sad and lonely. I will keep him alone for a little while to make sure he is not sick but we really want to get some new chins to give him company. He is a 14 year old chinchilla. When he was 2 years old he and his brother started fighting and the previous owner had them both sterilized/castrated. This didn't help and they had to be separated. Ptah was matched to two female chinchilla's (not at the same time but within a few months). I got the three chinchilla's from the previous owner and I have had them now for over 8 years. Two years ago one female died (I think from a heart attack) and a few days ago the other one. Several years ago one of the females was hurt and had to be quarantined for a while and he was very difficult in accepting her when she came back (on neutral ground of course) and only accepted her when the other female had already accepted her. He also wouldn't accept another female (pregnant) when we tried to ad her. This makes me a little bit scared of trying to introduce new chinchillas to him.
Nonetheless we would like to add some new chins. I'm hoping he will be easier now because he is lonely. I liked the group of 3 a lot and maybe 4 would be nice to. I like that they can choose with which chin they want to sleep or play. We have also never had a young Chinchilla so that would be very nice to. I was thinking that females would be better because he has already had some problems with a male. A male and female would be nice to get a baby chin but I'd rather not have to get the male castrated because it seems a dangerous procedure with such stress sensitive small animals. The cage is big and can be separated into two cages if necessary and we could keep two separate couples. So my questions are basically, how long should we wait with adding new chins? Can they be young, and female or also male? Can we ad a few young females or maybe a mother with a baby. Should new chins be added separately or would together be better and if so is it better if they know each other already?
I'm sorry it's a long read and I would greatly appreciate any advice you could give me.
Sadly, last Monday my female chinchilla (Basted) died. She was 12 years old and I am not quite sure what was wrong. She was very weak and just lying on her side and died soon after. I don't think it was anything contagious because my other chinchilla named Ptah seems fine (except that he seems very sad en lonely).
I'm writing this post because of Ptah, he seems sad and lonely. I will keep him alone for a little while to make sure he is not sick but we really want to get some new chins to give him company. He is a 14 year old chinchilla. When he was 2 years old he and his brother started fighting and the previous owner had them both sterilized/castrated. This didn't help and they had to be separated. Ptah was matched to two female chinchilla's (not at the same time but within a few months). I got the three chinchilla's from the previous owner and I have had them now for over 8 years. Two years ago one female died (I think from a heart attack) and a few days ago the other one. Several years ago one of the females was hurt and had to be quarantined for a while and he was very difficult in accepting her when she came back (on neutral ground of course) and only accepted her when the other female had already accepted her. He also wouldn't accept another female (pregnant) when we tried to ad her. This makes me a little bit scared of trying to introduce new chinchillas to him.
Nonetheless we would like to add some new chins. I'm hoping he will be easier now because he is lonely. I liked the group of 3 a lot and maybe 4 would be nice to. I like that they can choose with which chin they want to sleep or play. We have also never had a young Chinchilla so that would be very nice to. I was thinking that females would be better because he has already had some problems with a male. A male and female would be nice to get a baby chin but I'd rather not have to get the male castrated because it seems a dangerous procedure with such stress sensitive small animals. The cage is big and can be separated into two cages if necessary and we could keep two separate couples. So my questions are basically, how long should we wait with adding new chins? Can they be young, and female or also male? Can we ad a few young females or maybe a mother with a baby. Should new chins be added separately or would together be better and if so is it better if they know each other already?
I'm sorry it's a long read and I would greatly appreciate any advice you could give me.