barbackz asks
I bought two new more beautiful chinchillas: one male ebony and one female mosaic. The male is 10 weeks old and is being housed with my 9 month old Gizmo. The cage is rather large since I built it that way. My problem is Loki, the youngest, keeps attacking Gizmo. Why is it that he is so submissive? He is 2 times Loki's size and he runs away like it's the other way around. I know chinchillas sometimes don't get along at all, but I thought since Loki was young they would get along fine. I separated them after two days when I saw fur in Loki's mouth. I feel horrible and feel that no matter how I introduce Gizmo as a companion, Loki will continue to dominate over him.
Chinchilla Planet answers…
We introduced two chins by first keeping each in separate cages. The cages were kept quite close to each other. We would, at first, only let one chinchilla out of her cage at a time. We also created a divider in one of the cages so we could get the two chinchillas even closer to each other as time progressed. Eventually, we let both chinchillas out of their cages together, but always supervised. As the fighting/chasing incidents decreased, the time we allowed them to be together increased. Feel free to check out a somewhat more detailed description of how we introduced our chinchillas.
There are likely variations on the above throughout this forum, but the main idea is to control the introductions and stop any stress-inducing behavior quickly.
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December 16th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
I actually have a question that relates to this somewhat. I recently got 2 new chinchillas that came with a very large cage. I already had a Chinchilla that had a cage of his own. I put the cages side by side for about 2 months before starting to put them together in a cage. (20 minutes at a time, slowly building to hours at a time.) At first I alternated the cage they went into, and eventually I cleaned out the big cage, rearranged everything, and put all three chins together. For the first 2 weeks, they got along great, but now, Mappy (the more aggressive of the original pair) seems to be having a problem. I have not seen which chin is attacking him, but I can only assume it is Kobayashi(the one I added to them.) The first time I noticed anything was wrong was 2 weeks ago, when I noticed that Mappy's fur was a bit wild and pulled looking in a couple of places (like he had been in a scuffle) about 3 days ago I noticed he had a decent sized patch of fluff missing from the center of his scalp. Yesterday I went in to see them and noticed that he had about a 2 inch wide circle of fluff that was missing completely and there was a small (less than the area of a pinkynail) area of rawness that was bleeding a little. I caught him (and was bitten twice, as he is the only one of the 3 that bites) and covered his head with triple antibiotic ointment. Today, he is bleeding a small amount from that spot and has one small scratch on one ear. I don't want to have to put them back into the two-cage system as Moka (chin #3) seems to have gotten closer to Kobe than he ever was to Mappy (they snuggle a lot) but I don't want Mappy to feel punished by being put into another cage. Is there anything I can do to stop the bullying? Would giving them a larger cage help this? Any advice would be very helpful!!!!
December 16th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Elizabeth,
Mappy likely won't feel punished if put in to another cage. Rather, he may feel safer. The fighting that is going is undoubtedly causing stress for all the chins and the best way to reduce this stress is to separate them. This separation will also give your injured chin a chance to heal.
Having said that, here are some other thoughts:
1. Once separated, make sure your chinchilla is actually healing. If fur continues to come off, then there maybe additional issues.
2. If your cage contains just one sleeping box, consider adding another one. This way the chinchillas can choose to sleep separately.
3. If you're using a single dish and water bottle, consider adding additional ones. This will help reduce the number of reasons for the chinchillas to fight.
You'll probably have to do a little experimentation to find a solution that works, but some separation time does seem like the best first step. We wish you luck and let us know how things work out!
August 14th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Hello,
My wife and I got a young chinchilla last year and named her Aquila. She was always really sweet and treated us immediately like family. We were so pleased, that after a while we decided to get another chinchilla to keep her company because we thought that it would be the best thing and so, a couple of months ago, we brought Nimbus home. I was foolish and I immediately put Nimbus into Aquila's cage. I hadn't done enough research and I didn't realize that chinchillas needed so much time to learn to acclimate themselves to each other. So, immediately there were spats. We removed Nimbus at once, of course, and put her in her own cage but we kept the cages close together. We've since done a lot of research and have tried lots of suggestions for helping the chinchillas learn to like each other, but it hasn't seemed like anything has helped. In fact the opposite has happened. The fighting has seemed to increase. We try to moniter them closely and we try to give them time together to get them used to each other, but to no avail.
What can we do?
Please please help.
David
October 11th, 2008 at 4:05 am
hi,
my boyfriend and i have a male adult chinchilla and we decided to get another one. we went to a breeder and we picked out this cute male, baby white mosaic chinchilla about 5 months old. The breeder put my old chinchilla and the new one together and they got along really well. they never fought once. its been about 7 months later and now they are just starting to fight? i dont understand because the new chinchilla keeps attacking my old chinchilla. my old chinchilla keeps growling at him and runs away when the new chinchilla comes near. Why are they starting to fight now? Please Please help me. what can we do??
October 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Tommy and Shelly,
You've got a tough situation. It's hard to know what's prompting the fighting now. Do you have a large cage with more than one place to for your chinchillas to sleep? Maybe separate food dishes too. Such things may keep them from feeling like they're competing and reduce the territorial instinct. Admitted, all of this is a guess as we haven't had to deal with your situation.
Good luck!
November 12th, 2008 at 12:48 am
We are looking to get a pet chinchilla for our 11 year old son. Shane has had other pets and is very gentle and kind with them. He is also our only child and our household is a quite one. We wanted to get a baby preferable from a breeder somewhere here on Long Island NY. My question is would you recommend a male or a female chinchilla? I know females in most pets are the more docile ones and warm up to a male owner. Is this true with chinchilla's? Are there any disadvantages to owning either male or female? We had a male rabbit once that would attack my feet when I was at that time of the month and he would spray like crazy at you…..anything like that with either one?? Also do you know or would recommend a breeder from our area? Your site was very informative to me and one of the best sites that I had come across for this information. I thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you. Laura Sacks