Chinchilla Community Forums
Chinchillas => Q & A => Topic started by: alaskapoppy on February 26, 2017, 11:21:16 AM
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Hi!
So I am wondering if it would be easy to bond two chinchilla girls with a new chinchilla girl? I already have two chinchilla's who get along very well. Now my friend is giving away her chinchilla because she can't take care of it anymore. The chinchilla was always housed alone and is 9 months old.. I really want to adopt her and give her two new friends but I am wondering if this will be an easy proces and if it will even work? Do you guys have any experience with this?
Thanks
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It is never a process that is guaranteed to work. Whenever you have more than one chinchilla you must be able to separate them and house them separately. Even after they are bonded they can turn on each other at any time and sometimes with fatal consequences.
For combining I recommend 3 weeks minimum quarantine, make sure the new one is in a separate room and observe for any potentially life-threatening or contagious disease. Most of the time if a chin has anything dangerous, such as a respiratory illness, it will show up after 3-4 weeks.
Then put them in the same room and put the cage about 2 inches apart and wait for two weeks. Then introduce them in a neutral place like a bathtub where you're dusting. (I'd start with two at a time, and observe closely.) If one tries to attack, pulls out hair, draws blood, etc. you know there is no compatibility. Be warned some chins can be so aggressive they will kill with one bite. Make sure this isn't going to happen.
Once together make sure there are at least two food bowls in the cage and keep track of the weight of all three. This is good practice anyway but you might want to weigh every other day to ensure no chinchilla is being denied access to food or getting too stressed. Personally I recommend against this but I know others have had success with 3 and more. It is your call.