Sometimes things don't go well for chinchilla owners. Such was the case when we heard from Jennifer.

Does anyone know if it's common for chinchillas to kill each other or act violently towards each other? I don't know if my chin killed the other one, but we came home and found the female dead. The might be killer was her baby (a 1 year old male). They have acted violently before and if I had known it was going to go this far, I would have separated them. Stupid, stupid me already knew I was supposed to. I feel horrible about it.

I'm also wondering if maybe they were chasing each other and she hit her head. I really don't think so though because I saw that there was a spot by her nose where she was injured (like he possibly bit her) or maybe he was just trying to groom her after she passed away. I only had 2 at the most together in one cage (only mom and baby because they seemed to get along, the other was new because he was given to us out of nowhere.

I tried combining different ones to see if they might get along but they always attacked each other. I really regret having them together that long, I knew I should not have and now the sweetest one had to pay:( I also think her baby has something wrong with him because he's still smaller than most chinchillas and he's fat. He also has smaller eyes. If anyone knows any answers to my questions please let me know. Thanks lots :)

We unfortunately didn't have much to tell Jennifer. Her experience was outside of what we've ever dealt with.

Jennifer,

We're sorry to hear about your chinchilla. We've never seen or even heard of that level of violence.

Many, many years ago I had pet hamsters that had a bunch of babies. I didn't separate them soon enough and they started to kill each other. It's a sad thing and acts as a reminder that we need to listen to our gut feelings and take action to prevent such situations from happening.


7 Responses to “Do Chinchillas Kill Each Other?”
  1. dee(new comment) :

    So sorry for Jennifer's poor little chin,but anytime you introduce a new chin it should be done by putting the two cages side by side so they can show you if they will like each other or if it's just not a match.This process takes about 2-4 weeks, you'll know if they like each other cause they will try to cuddle together through the cages. Always keep in mind that you may want certain chins to pair up, but in final the choice is the chins. Unfortunately males will fight to the death, and some females don't want other females near them. I breed 2-3 females per male,but the choices still rely on the chins. But you should never leave a baby chin with it's mom after the age of 6 weeks, always seperate the different sexes as well,the males will try to breed with it's mom and it's sisters.Even in most cases the male babies will kill if he wants to breed and the other chin doesnt want. Male chins do not care if the other is related to it or not, if they want to breed they will always kill if the female does not breed. In all cases related chin should be seperated.;

  2.  
Trackbacks
  1.  
Leave a Reply