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1

General Chat / Two chins that hate each other

« on: June 04, 2010, 08:19:09 PM »

This is going to be long, so thank you to anyone that reads through this and is able to offer your best advice.

I used to have 3 chins: Bella, Chinny, and Bebe.  Bella and Chinny lived together, and Bebe lived by herself due to a situation that happened when we first adopted her.  I'd written a bit about this before.

I wasn't a very chin-smart owner, I will say, at the beginning, and still had a lot to learn.  Even though I'd heard/read about chins having trouble getting along, I was kind of ignorant since it was so easy to get Chinny and Bella together!  After purchasing them a huge cage, we decided to get a third chin so they could be one big happy family!

Well, we were very stupid about introducing Bebe to the two of them.  We brought them all to play in the bathroom at first, and things were going great!  So we naively decided to put Bebe into Bella and Chinny's cage.  Well, as you can guess, they were NOT happy about this, and Chinny attacked her.  We ended up removing her and putting her into a smaller cage next to their cage where they could see her.

I now realize, after doing a lot of reading on the internet, this was a stupid move.  The neighboring cages can actually be stressful to chinchillas that don't get along, and they obviously felt like Bebe had parked her car in their driveway. *Sigh*.  Well, we kept the cages near each other, so I'm sure we've done a lot of damage.  We even tried separating out Bella and Chinny's cage at one point, and putting Bebe upstairs, which ended badly as they bit her foot.  Now I realize how foolish I was and that all this most likely did was cause a lot of resentment.

Anyway, we came to terms that they will probably never get along, and thought about maybe getting Bebe a friend, and this time being a lot better about introducing them to each other.  Maybe even going to a shelter and finding her a compatible chin before just forcing one upon her.  Of course, we did keep hoping they would get along as we don't live in a very big place, and having one cage is a lot better than two.

Well, fast forward, and Chinny ended up passing away  .  I wrote about this in more detail in memorials.  So now Bebe and Bella both live in large cages completely alone.  Which is fine, but I read that chinchillas can become stressed if they don't have a companion.  And I also noticed that Bella seems to not be doing super well.  I used to hear her and Chinny running around all night, and now I don't anymore.  Last night at 3 am I checked in on her, and she was laying down as if it were daytime .  Also, Bebe seems to just always be hiding and laying down.  She's gotten a bit better around me and my husband, but she's still very timid and seems scared all the time.  I think having a companion would be much better for her.

Well, the problem is that I don't know if I have it in me to get 2 more chinchillas.  After Chinny passed away, it's been really hard on me, and I don't want to buy a lot more chinchillas so that I have to go through that so many more times!

The ideal situation would be if Bella and Bebe would finally get along.  So I've thought of a few options, and I want to know what some of you more experienced owners think:

A. I just go ahead and acquire 2 more chinchillas from a shelter, making sure they are compatible with the chins I have now.  That way I'm also doing a good deed, because I'm giving some abandoned chins a forever home.

B. I separate Bebe and Bella to two separate rooms for an entire year so they don't see or smell each other at all.  Do chinchillas have good memories?  Do you think if I did that they would forget the grudges they have against each other and get along?  I do think they are compatible, based on the fact that they did get along for a period of time before Bebe invaded the other two's house.  And Bella always seemed a little more open to Bebe than Chinny did even though they both clearly hated her.

C. I give Bebe away to a chin smart home where there is someone that has another chinchilla for her to live with.  This would be the hardest option for me as I love Bebe so much, but I sometimes wonder if this would be the best for Bebe.  And then I would acquire a new chin for Bella.

Are there any other options that anyone can think of?  I'm all ears and open to all ideas.

2

Memorials / In so much pain

« on: May 09, 2010, 02:25:14 PM »

I am so depressed right now.  My first chinchilla passed away today.

My husband and I went on a short vacation last weekend, so we left our chinchillas at my parents' house in smaller cages than they were used to so that they could be taken care of for a few days.  When we got back, they seemed to be fine and we brought them back to our house.  The next day, Tuesday, I woke up to find my first chinchilla, Chinny, biting the fur off from her belly.  I became very worried and called my husband before I went to work.  When he got home, he made an appointment with a local hospital that has exotic animal specialists.  She was taken in right away because she had an infection on her chest going up to her arm.

They did surgery on her the next day to remove the infection and stitch her back up, and let us take her home that night.  She seemed to be doing fine at first, but then the next day we noticed that she wasn't eating, drinking, or pooping, and seemed to be breathing heavy.  We took her to the hospital that night, but there wasn't an exotic animal vet in.  The one that looked at her said she seemed to be fine and gave her her medications and also hydrated her.  We took her home again.

We began syringe feeding her water, and hand-feeding her her food, but she eventually got worse.  Last night she seemed weak, but we knew the exotic animal vets weren't in at night, so we waited until this morning.  This morning, she was so still that she seemed dead at some points.  We rushed her to the hospital right away.  I held her carry case in my lap, and opened it so I could pat her.  She looked in so much pain, and it breaks my heart so much to think of her like that.  She just crawled up toward me as I patted her behind the ears.

As soon as we brought her in, she was taken to be given oxygen.  They said she got reinfected and the infection spread to the rest of her body.  They tried to IV her antibiotics and syringe feed her food, and rehydrate her, but she didn't respond to any of the treatments.  She had to be given oxygen to keep living, and her heart kept stopping.  In the end they told us she was suffering too much and the best choice would be to euthanize her.  Before they got the chance, she took her last breath.

I am so heart broken.  I wish I could go back in time and not taken her home from the hospital until she had healed completely.  I wasn't good enough at taking care of her to keep her alive.  I am so depressed and I can't stop crying.  She was such a wonderful, beautiful chinchilla.  She's the one in my avatar.  And she had a chinchilla that she had bonded with, Bella, that she lived with.  I feel so sad for Bella.  She never even got to say goodbye to her.

She was young too.  I don't know how old exactly because she was bought off of craigslist by a friend and given to me as a birthday present.  But I think she was only 3 or so years old.  I am so sad... she should have been able to have lived longer than that.  It's so unfair.  I know she's now in chinchilla heaven being her active self playing with all the other nice chinchillas there.  It just hurts so much to think about how weak she was and how much she suffered before she died.

3

Health / Chinchillas can't have their period, can they?

« on: February 07, 2010, 09:53:00 PM »

Oh my gosh, I don't know what happened!  I just went to clean the cage of two of my female chinchillas.  And there was blood on top of their house where they sleep, on the ledges, and on their chinchiller...  I have no idea whose blood it was, and neither of them had blood on their fur.  I let them run around outside their cage while I cleaned it, and they both seemed to be doing fine.  I couldn't see any cuts or injuries after inspecting them!

But what was that blood?  I'm assuming I should be very worried!  As I never heard of chinchillas having their periods!

Maybe it wasn't blood?  Could they have a urinary tract infection and be peeing blood?  Please help!

4

Guestbook / Hi, everyone!

« on: August 30, 2009, 10:10:56 AM »

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.

5

Q & A / Help! 3 v. unhappy chinchillas :o(

« on: August 27, 2009, 09:04:13 PM »

Thank you so much for accepting me to your forum!  I am in desperate need of advice, and have been waiting all day to post!

I have 3 chinchillas.  Chinny was my first, but she seemed lonely, so I got her a friend named Bella.  They've been living together a bit less than a year, very happily.  My fiance and I recently purchased a ferret nation cage for them, which has allowed them to have a lot of space.  We would comment that maybe we could get a third chinchilla to add to the family.  Well, I saw a very adorable 9 month old ebony chinchilla at my local shelter, so we decided to take her in, and add her as a final member to the family, and named her Bebe.  We put them all in the bathroom for play time to see how they'd get along, and things seemed to be going very well.  They were all smelling each other and playing nicely.

So, we decided to put Bebe into the cage, since they seemed to get along.  Things were okay at first.  Bella and Chinny were resting together in their house, and Bebe was upstairs by herself.  She finally decided to come downstairs and perch herself on one of the downstairs perches.  Well, Chinny did not like that, and started bothering her, and then started chasing her around the cage.  So when Chinny went back downstairs, we put in a separator so that Chinny and Bella could not get to Bebe.  We put a towel to cover the cage separator, so that they wouldn't be able to see each other.

They seemed a bit frustrated that the top portion of the cage was closed off, but after a while seemed to be doing okay.  Bebe moved the towel over so that she could see them, and they looked at each other for a little bit, but didn't seem to be hissing at each other or anything.  Then we decided to bring them into the bathroom for some more play time, and this time Chinny kept attacking Bebe .  So we put them back in the cage separated.  I guess this was a bad idea, because after a while, Chinny became very grumpy.  She went into her house and wouldn't come out.  Then Bella would go over to Chinny, and she would make grumpy noises, like, "Go away!  Don't bother me!"

We finally decided to move Bebe into her own cage, because we obviously did not like Chinny being upset.  So I had to get a cage, that used to be used for a guinea pig a long time ago, to put Bebe into.  That's how they were for the whole night, and the whole night, Chinny just stayed in her house and would make grumpy noises whenever Bella would come near her.  Then, in the morning, when we woke up, Bella wanted to go to sleep as usual, with Chinny.  And Chinny would continue being grumpy and telling her to go away.

My boyfriend and I had to go to work... and now we came home, and Chinny and Bella seem to be even more angry at each other.  Chinny makes angry noises whenever Bella gets near her, and Bella attacks Chinny whenever she tries to leave her house now.  We're thinking about taking Chinny and Bella into the bathroom for play together to see what happens, and if that helps.  Then, tomorrow, once the pet stores open, we're thinking about buying another water bottle and food bowl, so that we can separate Chinny and Bella... but we have to wait until then, because we don't want to deny either of them either of those things (even though, right now, Chinny can't even leave her house ).

Please help!  I feel like such a horrible chinchilla mom!!!  I didn't want my chinchillas to all become so moody and angry and frightened .  And I don't want to return Bebe to the shelter, obviously, since she deserves a loving home.  But I don't want my other two chinchillas to be completely frustrated either!

I was really hoping they could all live together happily in a pack.  But I should have gotten so ahead of myself!  What have I done???