Hello Out there!
I just wanted to introduce myself and of course my two lovely little chins! My name is Ash but your welcome to call me Desert Chin ^_^, I'm not entirely to new to the wonderful world of chinchilla's. I used to have a chinchilla a few years back by the name of Havoc but unfortunetly due to the desert heat here in AZ one year while we were on vacation our air conditioning went out and my poor little girl got over heated and passed away the family friend who was watching her, and the other various animals in my folks house felt so terrible but it wasnt her fault, things happen. Since then I have grown away from my folks house, got married to my best friend and now expecting my frist child this Nov. (girl).
Well my husband and I were talking about Havoc one day (he never got to meet her, he wished he did) and it made me realize how much I missed my little girl and how much I wished I still had her around. So I was able to bug my mom for the picture she had in a photo alblum of me and Havoc and showed it to my husband. Well little to my knowlege he was already looking online for a chinchilla as a suprise present for me. On his day off he was searching through Craigslist and found a pair of chinchilla's seeing the beige one he pulled me aside and told me "look she looks just like havoc" I was suprised at the resemblance! He then handed me the phone with a smile and told me I should give them a call to see if they are still available, and if they were we should go take a look at them. I did what he said and suprisingly they were still available. I was excited now to go take a look at these chins at the same time knew that I shouldnt get to excited just encase they had any issues or were not what I would want in a chinchilla, especially an older one (not saying adopting an older chin is bad, but it takes longer for the bonding process especially if they have been mistreated).
So when I first got to see these little guys I was slightly disturbed by their living arrangements. They were in a fairly large parrot cage (not a standard bird cage) with a piece of wood to perch, steal food dish, and a plastic house which they have already started to chew to heck and back.Not to mension the condition of the cage, the poor chins were pee'ing in the corners and it looked like the cage had not been cleaned in weeks with fur and pee clumps stuck to the bars. It was truely gross. But I wasnt going to let that make up my mind on these guys yet. Their names were Smokey and Vanillia and they were actually classroom pets (which made me feel great since I was expecting my first child and it was good to hear that they had been around kids..either way I would of introduced them slowly to my daughter. This just made it easier) and were roughly a year to a year and a half in age. Vanilla is a female while Smokey is a male and the two were obviously bonded to one another, but I had to ask since it is a male and female pair if they had been known to breed and the previous owner said no (strange). Anyways I opened their cage and set my hand down on the bottom letting them come up to it as they pleased and investigate me. Smokey took to me quickly as he jumped onto my arm and looked at me. Vanillia took some encouragement with a rasin but soon became a good friend. They looked great and healthy (besides the cage condition) and I was in love with their friendly personalities. So my husband purchased them from the woman and we took them home.
Since then I have made several trips to petsmart making sure that they had all the essentials. They are still in the same cage (which I intend on replacing here shortly) but since then it has been cleaned completely! But they now have another wood perch in the cage (a chin approved perch) some new lava chews, a wood house in place the plastic one and they are working on becoming litter box trained which seems to be working great! Also it seems that they have never had hay or havent had it in soooo long so I have been working with each of them slowly by offering them hay and encouraging them to eat it (I am working with the loose timothy hay and the blocks trying to see which one they will take to more). They are happy and healthy and are looking great! They also seem to be loving the extra attention they have been getting when my husband and I have been taking them into the bathroom letting them free roam and get to know us as we just sit still and let them explore us as they please.
They are good little chins, and we know that we have some work in getting them to bond with us but already we know we have some trust with them and thats all we can ask. However we have changed Vanilllia's name to Cholula it seems more fitting to her little spicy personality and my husband thinks Smokey is just a perfect name for him so it has remained the same. So anyways thats a little about me and a lot about my two new chins. I joined the community to brush up on my knowlege of chins not to mension to start communicating with other chin parents ^_^ So hello from the valley of the sun! I hope to learn a lot from this site!
Cholula is the biege and Smokey is the standard Grey
This pic was taken the first night we brought them home
Not so strange when you consider they are "class room chinchillas" ... regardless of how much a teacher tries to keep the kids under control, some will get loud, or peck on the cage or make sudden noises ... this does stress a pair ... many times a pair under stress will not breed.