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[FluffBall]

oooooooh
those are such sad stories but the petland that I go to haldles their pets all the time and all day long the dogs cats birds ferrets bunnies chinnies the only things they don't play with are the reptiles and fish but they take very good care of their animals and they will educate you on them if you know nothing about them and they only sell for $99 to $159 depending on the color
that is were i got my ferret and if they didn't play with them then they would actually be mean if you go into a pet store and play with the ferrets and they bite not the babies cause they are teething then that tells you that they have not been played with

[FluffBall]

oh my gosh
I just got back from getting dust for my chins and had to stop and look at the babies in the store I am soooooooooooooooo frustrated with it since I have learned so much from this site

1st thing that is wrong is they have 6-8 chins in this all glass enclosure except for the top which is metal and has holes in it the size is a triangle  about 3 ft on all sides and 2 ft high  and to top it off they are not sure of the age and if they are all siblings and the worst is they are all male except for 1 silver mosaic and there is a beige male, and ebony male and I remember Jo Ann saying that there are lethal factors in breeding different colors

I told one of the employees that the female should not be in the same cage as the others and that they can breed very young and he said I know  a friend of his got a female from a different store and the had kits and were very mean cause they were inbred cause the male that was in the cage was her brother

and yet they let the female stay in that cage and didn't do anything 
Grrrrrrrrrrr that is so annoying when you tell a pet store these things about some animals to educate them and they just shrug it off
that gets me so mad

can anything be done about that

[chinclub]

Nope, as long as people continue to buy chinchillas from pet stores they will continue to sell them.  Pet stores by law only have to provide food, water, and a clean cage.  By law they do not have to be educated on the animal or its special care needs.  What makes me even more angry is the bad information pet stores give people.  They will push whatever products their store sells even if it isn't chinchilla safe.  The food they sell is crap and will shorten a chinchilla's life considerably.  Not to mention the poor health of pet store chinchillas.  From the research I've done and the people I've talked to over the years I would say that probably 80% of all chinchillas sold by the major pet store chains carry malocclusion.  Most of the emergency calls I get in the middle of the night or the frantic "help me" emails are from people who bought a chinchilla from a pet store.  They either got sick from malocclusion or from bad advice given from the store.  And yet people still keep going back and buying them and so the pet stores stock more and more chinchillas.
It's a vicious cycle..... 

OK, I'm sorry, let me step down off of my soap box now. 

[FluffBall]

no don't step down
you should never step down from anything that you are against
if everyone did that then there would be so much wrong and no right
for example I volunteer at a church food bank and they on guy that help runs it will be in michigan hold up the sign against abortion he said they were going to be the grose pic ones i never saw them and he explained to me what they were pics of and he had people come up to him thanking him for the pic cause they were going to have one done and seeing the pic they turned around and they said they wouldn't give up their daughter for anything and she has brought them such joy.  that is just on current example that is fresh in my mind or what about the animal lovers if they would have stepped down thenthe zoos cages would be tiny or there woldn't have been an invention and high demand for fake fur
so you see never step down cause you never know what it will lead to
that is what i believe

[Jo Ann]

Go, Jamie, go!!! [/shadow]

   FluffBall, what was the name of the petstore that is not housing the chinchillas properly?  And is leaving that one female in with all those males?

  Most pet stores (especially the national ones) are given instructions as to how to house each animal, according to what category/family they fall in.   Chinchillas are in the rodent family, so they are housed just like the mice being sold to feed to snakes.  They will tell you they have to follow the instructions of the home office (which has probably never even seen a chinchilla).

   OR they just look at you as if you have no idea what you are talking about, that they are the experts and how dare you try to tell them what to do!   (Some even have tha gall to say it.)

    I was having a 'discussion' with one store manager and Bill, my husband, got tired of his mouth ... went to the magazine rack and picked-up a copy of Critters, opened it to an article on chinchillas (one of the ones Jamie & I were interviewed in) and said ... "See that name?"  The manager said, "What does she have to do with this?"  He said,  "That is her." (As I pulled out my driver's license and handed it to him.)  Red-faced, the manager ask me if I would show him what the chins needed.  I did, and he set them up properly.

  Of course the next year (new manager) had it back the old way.     It's a loosing battle! 
 Like Jamie said:

And yet people still keep going back and buying them and so the pet stores stock more and more chinchillas.
It's a vicious cycle..... 

 
Jo Ann [/i]

[Jo Ann]

 Let's get back to pictures of your chin rooms!   Even if you have only one cage, the room it's in is your chin room!

[FluffBall]

Elmer's it is privately owned they are a great store to get fish at and that is why I go there cause I love fish tanks too i think that they started out as a fish store and think they grew
they have a web site if you would be so kind in telling them how to cage them the poor things are sooo hot too cause they are all laying down on their sides they have a small plastic like hermit cage thing in ther with a ice pack in it but it wont get them cool enough
the web site is elmersaquarium.com
I would really appreciate it poor little guys and gal especially gal

[Joyce]

  Oh my gosh Elmer's Aquarium!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can remember making trips there weekly as a kid.  My parents would take me with my allowance to buy fish & supplies for my aquarium.  At that point (100 years ago)  they only sold fish.  Sounds like they should have stayed with just fish.  Why do places do this?     They have a great thing going and then have to mess it all up!      Greed!

[Jo Ann]

Hi FluffBall,

if you would be so kind in telling them how to cage them the poor things are sooo hot too cause they are all laying down on their sides they have a small plastic like hermit cage thing in ther with a ice pack in it but it wont get them cool enough

Done

Don't know if it will do any good, but you could check later during the week and see.  Let us know.

 
Jo Ann [/i]

[FluffBall]

thanks Jo Ann
they are still a great place to get fish stuff and supplies for all kinds of animals but not the animals Joyce

[Jenova]

Animal cruelty, even if it's not intentional, gets me so angry and even if it is a pet shop surely it still counts as cruelty. Having an injured animal, or one that it not properly housed or fed is inexcusable in my eyes. Even though we have only had our Chin for a few days we have used that time to find out everything we possibly can so how hard can it be?

I don't live in America so I don't know how the law works over there but surely there is some organisation that can at least educate them if not take away the animals that are not cared for properly.

Sorry I know this is still off topic but there must be something that can be done.

[Debbie.nl.ca]

I guess I could never be a good breeder cause I would always want to play with them and let them out and stuff

You don't have to have 100's to be a good breeder either. being a good breeder shows in your level of care, love concern for your animals and being able to make the right choices in breeding and keeping chinchillas.
 Wanting to keep it small enough to give yourself time to play with them has little to do with being a good breeder, nor does having houndreds.
I saw my worst breeder housing 350 chin  in an unclean, overly ventilated barn, not fit for the fleas let alone animals.He didn't even talk to them.
I keep 25- 30 chins, breeding the best, but giving top quality care to them all.
I am a "good" breeder too.

[Jo Ann]

You don't have to have 100's to be a good breeder either. being a good breeder shows in your level of care, love concern for your animals and being able to make the right choices in breeding and keeping chinchillas.

    Amen to that, Debbie. Anyone that puts a male and a female chinchilla together could be called a 'breeder', because they are allowing their chinchillas to reproduce.

    But, there is a HUGE difference between an indiscriminate breeder and a good breeder!

    The quality of the chinchilla, the knowledge of how to breed them to continue to produce high quality chinchillas generation after generation, so that the quality of life (in reference to it's size, genes, structure and over all health) is the best it can be, makes a good breeder.  Quality breeding, the knowledge of it, and the practice of it, directly impacts the future of all chinchillas. 

     Indiscriminate breeding also impacts the future of all chinchillas ... to the bad for all of them.
     You can put a high quality chin with a low quality chin and it will produce low quality chins most of the time, or at the least still carry the bad genes of the low quality chin.
     You can put a chin with a background of healthy ansestors into breeding with a chin that has heart mummers, cataracts, and/or malocclusion in it's background and you have just messed up the future for every chin that they produce and on and on through future generations.
      Anytime you put a chinchilla into breeding without knowing it's medical and color background, you are taking a huge chance of producing generations of low quality chinchillas.  Not only are the chinchillas low quality, but their life is a very low quality life also! 

     We can't toss away a low quality chinchilla or one we do not know it's background on, it is still loveable and will make a wonderful pet/family member ... just do not put it in a breeding situation!

    OK Time to get off my soapbox for now.

 
Jo Ann

[Sweetnessheart]

I finally took some pictures of the my chinchilla room.  This is the best.  It shows my cages along with my extra ones on the old freezer ready for new babies when I have them!

[FluffBall]

well since I moved I cannot get my nice cagte in through the door the other place had sliding doors and that is how I got it in there, I am glad I saved that ugly 2 1/2 story chin cage so I am stuck using that one till my brother can cut down the nice one