I have heard that male chinchillas bond much better with male humans and female chins with females and we've found this to be very true with Cheech. He absolutely loves my partner. When he's out of his cage he'll run all over him and sit on his shoulder (he especially loves to do this while he's playing computer games, just to put him off
). He'll cuddle up with my partner and groom his arm hairs (blegh).
But with me, he loves to give me a quick bite. He goes for my knuckles and he once got me on my nose when I was feeding him (left a lovely scab for a week of so). Now he'll jump on my lap or hop onto my arms if I open the top of his cage, so I know he trusts me, but he just seems to love to give me that quick little bite whenever he can. My boyfriend laughs and says that he's trained Cheech well.
He never draws blood, I know it's just a little warning nip to tell me to back off. He just doesn't love me as much as I love him.
So I was just wondering if you had any similar experiences. I find it really interesting because I'm very new to chinchillas but I've had rabbits for about ten years now and I get on much better with male rabbits.