How we got our first Chinchilla....
I was a new member to this club when I saw a message
saying "Free Chins and their equipment for Picking
them up!
Well, did the e-mails ever flow from then on. I
found out that I was getting a mom and dad pair, 2 one
year old boys, and 3 babies that were supposed to be
two males and one female. I live in East Central AB
and the weather was not good. Blizzards and cold
here, but we kept in touch, and the minute it broke, a
friend and I headed for Kalispell, Montana. Because
of taking a few wrong turns, and more blizzards on the
way down there, it was late when we got there. The
Chins, were all packed up, ready to go and a huge 6
foot cage was already on the patio. We visited, I was
introduced to the Chins and we loaded and got away
from there still later!! The weather coming home was
worse in spots than going down was, but we made it
back to Alberta some time in the middle of the night.
I dropped my friend off west of Red Deer and carried
on alone, without any sleep.
To make a long story short, I got back here the next
day, Feb 22, 2001, and moved the Chins in to temporary
housing. Because 3 doors had to be taken off to get
the beautiful large cage into the living room, it took
quite awhile to get it in here, but eventuallly, that
happened.
Now, the funny part starts. I never looked at these
chins again, until after having a pair together since
Christmas, I had a young gal bring me a new young gal
to breed to some of these standard grey boys. While
she was here with her lovely little "Sunshine" I asked
her to check the other chins!! We started with mom
and a boy!
Gina says, Female, Female!!! Right there, I was blown
away! One of them was supposed to be a boy!!!
So I said, "OK, check the boys!!" We pulled the first
one out and Gina said, "Female!" I grabbed her and
put her in an extra cage in the Guinea Pig room. By
the time I got back to the living room, Gina was
giggling and saying, "Female" again!!! Well, in the
end, what I had was 6 standard grey FEMALE chins!!!!
Gina laughed and laughed and exclaimed, "Oh Jean! you
have all females!!!" We immediately, decided she
would take little Sunshine home, and bring back an
adult male, "Dudley", the next morning. Well, he is
now settling in and getting acquainted with all "his"
girls. Think I will introduce them in person, about 2
girls at a time, once he has fully settled in.
One more coincidence about all this Chin acquiring,
is that last April, I took a boy chin out to a friend
in BC, and it turns out he was the only male I ever
got. The fellow who got him, showed me that he was a
MALE!!! so I gave away the only male I had all along.
How in the world did I reach into a cage of 6 Chins,
and pull out the only boy, when I thought I had all
boys? WEIRD!!!
Thank goodness that I finally got straightened out on
how to sex Chins. They are like cats, so now, at
least if and when I ever have any babies, I will know
the sexes. I had merely gone along with what the
people I got these chins from had said. A little
naive of me I guess., but we are now having a good
giggle over it all. Something else pretty funny is
that I was sure I had seen a breeding plug from
Picachu. Ha! ha!
Lucky Shawn!! He got what he really wanted and I did
owe him.
I started with 7 Chins, so that is how my
Chinnery became "7th HEAVEN CHINS" which went along
with my Caviary, "GUINEA PIG HEAVEN"
Hope you have enjoyed my story and the one small
message in it -- sex those chins!!!!
Chinnily,
Jean Benson
My son who is 14 has had rats since he was seven.
Since they only live approx. three years, it was
always devastating when they passed on. When his last
rat developed a tumor he began to think about a pet
that would live longer. He researched guinea
pigs,rabbits and chinchillas. He decided on a
chinchilla and then thought it might be too much
trouble so we started looking at dwarf rabbits. We
went to a lot of pet stores to look. One of the pet
stores we went into had a handmade sign up for a male
chinchilla for sale. We took that as a sign and
asked.
The sign was posted by the daughter of the owner. She
had purchased the mother not knowing she was pregnant.
She now had a boy and girl and wanted to sell the boy.
We went to her house and met him and talked with her.
She claimed that caring for chinchillas was not
difficult, she was also checking us out to see if we
would be good owners. She liked my son and agreed to
sell the boy with a cage. That was in December, six
months have passed and he has been great. My son calls
him Mr. Jinx and he has a real personality. He has
warmed up and is a lot of fun. When he is out, free
time is every evening for about an hour or two, he
will approach you for scatches and rubs. He makes
little noises that we're sure are signs of pleasure.
It's not difficult at all to care for a chin!
Rena and Matthew Scharch
We have one chinchilla, a female black velvet named PIkachu.
I took my daughter with me to find a pet chinchilla and bring
her home. I had had chinchillas as pets 20 years ago and knew
about their care and personalities. I did not tell my husband
that I was going to do that because he didn't want pets at this
time in our lives and he would have flat out said "NO!". Needless
to say, he wasn't all too pleased when we surprised him and brought
her home. My kids were ecstatic, and my 12 year old son is her main
caretaker. He does cage cleaning, food and water, though I do make
sure to remind him often. Anyway, wouldn't you know that Pikachu's
favorite family member is my husband. Whenever he comes home from
work, he'd look in on her as he was going up to take a shower, she
runs right up to the front of the cage to greet him and cock her
head so that he could scratch her neck.
Karen Marcuccilli
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