nearly six months ago, one of our 'male' chinchillas gave birth to three babies - two boys & a girl - we took the dad out as soon as we found them but they did manage to mate in the space of few hours and she gave birth to a lovely girl two months ago.
we had the dad neutered and he developed a massive infection and unfortunately had to have another surgery two months later which he didn't survive. i have loved him more than i have ever loved any animal and i just cannot seem to be able to get over it.
now, the baby boys, we separated them from mum & sister when they were 9.5 weeks old (ffynn didn't weigh enough to be separated at 8 weeks) and they lived together until just before 5 months when we split them into two cages as mum & sisters are in the same room.
we don't have another room we could have put them in - annoyingly, we bought a house just before they were born (and we didn't know they were on the way) & we bought a small two bed cottage, we were also looking at a 4 bedroom new built but decided we liked the cottage better and didn't need huge amount of space.
so, the original plan was to have the boys neutered and pair them with girls but i just can't can't can't do it after what we went through with chinchi...
each boy has a very large three tier cage with a saucer wheel and all sorts of fun stuff. they can see each other and they can also see the girls, the girls (they're housed together) are slightly further away. they haven't been allowed on a run out because of the possibility of fits in kits younger than 6 months but in a week, they'll be getting an evening run every day. at the moment, their mum comes out of the cage and goes to see each of them and they sniff faces and all. one of the boys, spock, is happy to be picked up so i hold him and let him groom his sisters' faces through the cage. ffynn's not at all keen on being picked up but he's happy to be stroked.
am i being cruel by keeping the boys by themselves? or can they happily live surrounded by other chins?
