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mistywaterwoman
04-27-2013, 02:26 AM
Thought I would introduce you all to my six lovely chinchilla girls!! Let me start off by saying that if anyone wants to research chins as pets, I have a website just for that purpose, [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

I got my first chinchilla Sally (Princess Sally Acorn of Knothole Village) in January of 2006. We'd had hamsters for years, and although I loved having "pocket pets", their 2-3 year lifespan was depressing, so we looked around for a longer-lived pet and found chinchillas!!

This is Sally:
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She's a standard grey, and SUCH a sweetie! She loves to give me whisker kisses before bed.

Sally seemed lonesome, so a few weeks after we got her, I bought a larger cage and went back to the pet shop for the other girl that Sally had been caged with.

This is Amy Rose. She's a silver (mosaic).
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Amy is a STINKER. I had a hard time keeping one step ahead of her, she gets into everything!! I always like to joke that if I'd gotten Amy first, she'd be my only chin. Good thing she's pretty, lol.

A few months later, in November of 2006, a friend of mine in upstate NY was looking for a male pink/white chinchilla, and I went through a bunch of online listings to help her find one. I ran across an ad for a pink/white GIRL, born at a rescue in AL, driving distance for me!! My hubby said she could be my Christmas present, and she's the best present I ever got.

This is Tami, my heart outside of my body:
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I tried getting the 3 of them to live together, but Tami and Amy HATED each other on sight (still do!) so eventually I started looking around for a young chin that I knew I could bond to Tami, who by this time was over a year old.

I found a breeder in MS who had a violet baby for sale, so in May of 2008 I brought Evie home to be a cagemate to Tami.
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Evie was a darling little angel, but unfortunately, when she was only a year and a half old, we found out she had maloclussion. I spent the next two years bringing her in for teeth trimmings, and handfeeding her with a syringe, until things got so bad we had to have her PTS, which completely broke my heart.

While all this was going on with Evie, I adopted a Black Velvet girl from the Canadian Chinchilla Rescue in Toronto. Seven wonderful friends from my chin forum volunteered to "railroad" her all the way down the east coast to FL, where I picked her up. (This was May of 2009.)

This is Patty McFatty, and she is just the most friendly chinchilla EVER.
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My thinking was that when Evie's time came, I could pair up Tami and Patty, but unfortunately Tami also hated Patty on sight, lol. (Tami is a bit of a diva.)

I arranged for another railroad and adopted another girl from the CCR a year later (05/10). She's a hetero beige girl named Phoebe.
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Phoebe had been at the CCR for over a year, so I took her. She's a darling, but she doesn't want to live with Patty either, so she and Patty are my two "single" girls.

We lost Evie in August of 2011, and Tami went into a decline, so I knew I had to find another "baby" that she would accept as a cagemate. My hubby said "This is your LAST one, so get the one you REALLY want." So I asked my breeder friend in Canada if she would reserve her next Lowe Recessive White girl for me, and she did!! (It's a fairly new mutation, and they are not commonly sold as pets yet.) It took a year for her to be born and then be old enough to ship.

Railroads are not an option for me anymore, because I now have a 2 year old who doesn't like long car rides, so we had Ruby flown in and picked her up at the airport. It worked out pretty well, she only had 6 hours of "travel time" and she was the only animal on both flights. The guys at the airport had NO idea what she was, lol.

Ruby came home in October of 2012:
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Her coloring is sort of a toasted marshmallow look.

I have two pairs and two singles, and they all live in Ferret Nation cages with loads of goodies, and they all get playtime every single night.
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It's a lot of work, but as all you parrot moms and dads know, it's a labor of love. :th_heart: I have lots of videos of them on YouTube if anyone is interested: [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

keepsmiling
04-27-2013, 07:28 AM
Wow...what a wonderful story. Each one is prettier than the next.:love_heart: I am not sure which color I would pick if they were all there together. I love Patty's color, very close to my Elliot. I like how Amy has a little piece of straw in that pic, they all look very cute. And, I am impressed with your set ups. I also have a ferret nation for Elliot, and two Xpens.{he got in trouble for eating an expensive cable..lol}
Thanks for taking such good care of them, and sharing their stories. What do they eat, what kind of sounds do they make, and how long do they live? Can they be litter trained, and is their {ahem} poop anything like a bunny's? Do they need to be neutered and spayed like bunnies, to keep them healthy? Why no boys, all girls? Just curious.
eta: I see they need temps below 75, how do you handle that in the summer?
One funny thing to note, is that my Mousebird Gryphon takes a sand bath, with a pinch of chinchilla dust. :)

roxynoodle
04-27-2013, 11:19 AM
They are so adorable and pretty colors! I also want to know the answers to Carole's questions :)

mistywaterwoman
04-27-2013, 12:44 PM
They eat alfalfa based pellets (we use Mazuri) and timothy hay (Oxbow) for the main part of their diet. I give mine other types of hay as a treat, and also a small pinch of oats and crushed rose hips as a nightly treat. They chew a LOT of wood, which I usually get from different online vendors because it's so time consuming to prepare it. All the natural chewing wood (apple, pecan, willow, pear, etc.) needs to be scrubbed, boiled and baked.

The poop is like a bunny, as in it's dry and pelleted looking. And they can't control it, lol. I am always sweeping up chin poop. They can be litter trained for peeing, and I have corner potty pans in each cage. Most of the girls use them, but some are stubborn and prefer to pee whereever they happen to be, which is why I made fleece liners for the cages. (sort of like for guinea pigs)

They don't need to be spayed or neutered like bunnies... in fact, it's hard to find a vet who will do that for a chin unless it's a medical necessity, like if they get pyometra or something serious. I keep all girls just because the first two I bought were girls, and after that I didn't want any "accidental" meetings. ;) Breeding chins is a serious business. All domestic chins started from the same 11 that were brought out of the Andes Mountains, so there are inbreeding issues you need to be aware of, lethal gene factors and of course the dreaded issues like maloclussion and fur chewing. I leave it to the experts and just BUY a "cute baby" if I want one.

As for sounds, they are pretty quiet overall. They can make a barking noise when upset or scared, and a sort of "kacking" noise when angry. To communicate with each other they make little hooty and squeaky noises, but you have to be right up next to them to hear that. There's a UK website with recorded noises if you are interested: [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks]

The bigger noise issue comes from them being rambunctious in the cage overnight, as they are crepuscular. They knock things over, run loudly on the wheels, and just generally bang around in the cage all night. It's comforting to hear since I know it means they are having a good time, lol.

They can live 15-20 years with good care. My oldest are 8 right now so we have a ways to go. I think the oldest living chin on record was 28 or 29, and he was in the UK. I'm hopeful that mine might go a bit over the 20 year mark. Good husbandry is the main component to good health for a chin, so I am RELIGIOUS about cleaning. Heck, their cages are usually cleaner than my house.

Temperature is an issue, especially considering where I live. I keep the main AC unit set at 73 for them and we also have a window unit to help out on hotter days, and for when the main unit needs servicing. For power outages we use a generator to run the window unit. You can also freeze bottles of water and wrap them in fleece and let the chins snuggle up to them to help keep cool. Sometimes in the dead of summer I do that for them regardless of temp, they love it. And of course, I keep slabs of marble (chin chillers) in all the cages for a "cool spot" for sleeping.

Since we have to deal with hurricanes and evacuations here, each chin (or pair) has their own smaller collapsible evacuation cage to take with us, and I have metal carriers that hold 3 chins each for the car ride as well. We've evacuated with the chins twice so far, and while it's not the luxury they are used to, at least they are safe and sound for the duration and not left behind like so many animals often are.

Which reminds me, I've yet to pick up an evac cage for the lovies. Gotta get that done before June rolls around again. ;)

Ashleigh
04-27-2013, 12:47 PM
They are just so cute! c:
It makes me want a chinchilla. Too bad I know nothing about them.
I just love all their colours :D

mistywaterwoman
04-27-2013, 12:52 PM
Wow...what a wonderful story. Each one is prettier than the next.:love_heart: I am not sure which color I would pick if they were all there together. I love Patty's color, very close to my Elliot. I like how Amy has a little piece of straw in that pic, they all look very cute. And, I am impressed with your set ups. I also have a ferret nation for Elliot, and two Xpens.{he got in trouble for eating an expensive cable..lol}
Thanks for taking such good care of them, and sharing their stories. What do they eat, what kind of sounds do they make, and how long do they live? Can they be litter trained, and is their {ahem} poop anything like a bunny's? Do they need to be neutered and spayed like bunnies, to keep them healthy? Why no boys, all girls? Just curious.
eta: I see they need temps below 75, how do you handle that in the summer?
One funny thing to note, is that my Mousebird Gryphon takes a sand bath, with a pinch of chinchilla dust. :)

I feel your pain with the chewing. I can't tell you how much sheetrock I have patched from Amy chewing my walls. And we just replaced two window sills as well!! The first two years I had chins were spent trying to outsmart Amy during playtime, and finally I just gave up and spent a small fortune on the gates.

keepsmiling
04-27-2013, 01:36 PM
Thanks Kara, excellent info!

Too bad I know nothing about them.
Look above, you can learn a bunch just by what Kara posted!:th_LOL:

mistywaterwoman
04-28-2013, 02:50 PM
Or by reading my website, [Users must be registered and logged in to view attached photos or hyperlinks] - that's what I made it for! ;)

Though I am not sure about NZ, I can tell you that chins are still illegal to own in Australia. :(

Maddy
04-28-2013, 03:29 PM
They are beautiful!

Hobbit
04-29-2013, 06:23 PM
I can attest to the fact that my "nieces",Kara's lovely Chinchillas are SPOILED ROTTEN!!


But they are true beauties in every way!! I love them all.