Making friends through Chinchillas

Member Article written by -
Alison Jones, Holland

My name is Alison and I have been interested in chinchillas for about 4 years. I started off with 2 brothers bought from a pet shop. One year later, they produced a baby. At first I didn’t realise what it was, I thought maybe a mouse had got in the house looking for food! After closer inspection I realised it was a chin baby. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I knew that with most rodents you took the male out of the cage, so I needed to figure out which one was the male! It didn’t take long, as it was quite obvious which one was mum. So off dad went into an old hamster cage! We didn’t have anything else, poor thing looked so uncomfortable! I went on the internet looking for information about what, if anything I should do. To my surprise, there were hundreds of pages about chinchillas, all offering information, advice and pictures. I soon realised that grey was not the only colour! I found one webpage that told me everything I needed to know and I emailed the owner for info. This was how I discovered Anjela (Crystal Chinchillas). Over some weeks we emailed and chatted on ICQ and decided that we should meet as we had a lot in common, she is English living in Belgium, I am English living in Holland, both of us a little homesick and needing friends, not only that, I wanted desperately to see these other colours and learn more about chinchillas, I had caught the bug. We began to see each other on a regular basis and through Anjela and the internet I met several other chinnie breeders, several of which became good friends. About three years ago, my life changed and I had to give up my chinchillas, by then I had over 50 and it broke my heart. I went through rather a bad time and eventually lost contact with my chinnie friends, including Anjela, although we still exchanged the odd email and chatted on ICQ. After a year or so of being lonely and miserable, I decide to surprise Anjela with a visit. It was like we had only seen each other the week before. My eldest daughter even spent the next 2 nights there! We caught up with each others lives and after seeing her chinnies, I realised how much I missed having chinnies of my own. After a short discussion with my boyfriend we decided that if we moved the furniture around, we had room for 2 large cages, and I could get back onto the chinnie circuit. This I have done and I once again have made some new friends and I am enjoying receiving emails or chatting with them. For me, Chinchillas are not only cute, furry and adorable, but a way of making new friends, which is very important to me.