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« on: August 23, 2012, 03:55:34 PM »
I feed him in the morning and wait until the next morning to feed him again. He had the night to eat and he didnt. If I put the cages side by side he freaks out and lets off this scent that a male lets off. We have noticed he lets it off when he is mad and when Harmaa is in heat. With the cages side by side he tries to charge at us through his cage when we talk to Harmaa. He was the sweetest chinchilla when we got him. After they mated he became extremely mean. We cant put out hands in that cage if Thumper is in the cage with Harmaa. He will try to bite us or will go after Harmaa for paying attention to us. He is very protective and he will attack her for letting us pet her or talk to her. He has pushed her off the shelf when we have talked to her so he could get there and try to bite us. I don't know what happened to make him like this. I don't think it would be a good idea to put them back together because of how protective he is. Harmaa is very responsive, she knows her name and knows when people are talking to her and she loves it she also loves being held. Thumper isn't like that. If Thumper is in the cage Harmaa wont be able to get that attention and it makes her sad. Plus we don't want her pregnant again. We don't know if her body can handle babies. The baby she had wasn't fully developed and came out in 3 pieces. I don't know if it was because her body couldnt do it. She was at her due date. We found out that females can get pregnant while they are pregnant and Thumper kept trying to get her pregnant while she was pregnant and was actually launching himself at her and attacking her while she was already pregnant and I don't want her over bred. I haven't had a chinchilla die from depression before. We had a black velvet female die and we think it was from over breeding so we are scared its going to happen again. My dads male didn't die from depression of losing his mate. That happened probably 8 years ago. Hes now almost 15 but acts sad a lot. I also have toys in Thumpers cage but he would rather chew on the bars and I can't get him to stop that.