Author Renee Trenholm
of Chinchilla Rescue & Sanctuary
Ga, USA
Thanksgiving Chinchilla Rescue
It seemed there would be nothing but gloom and doom for 16 scared and hungry chinchillas. Who would have thought that the misfortune of their human caretaker would give them hope for a brighter future?
A few days before Thanksgiving the Ferret and Dove Sanctuary of Pensacola, Florida was contacted by a woman asking if they would take her two chinchillas. She said she was being evicted and had no place to keep them. She further stated that she had contacted an animal shelter but they wouldn’t take exotic animals unless she paid to have them euthanized. Susie and Wes of the ferret rescue had many ferrets to take care of but they felt room could be made until a home could be found since there were only two chinchillas. To their surprise, when the woman showed up, she had nine chinchillas with her instead of the agreed-upon two. She brought cages with them so Wes and Susie moved things around and took them in. The woman was to bring supplies the next day but to everyone’s surprise, the woman showed up with seven more chinchillas along with the promised supplies. It was a little overwhelming for a ferret sanctuary to be taking care of 16 chinchillas as well as all the ferrets that were already there. Some of the ferrets in their sanctuary must be handfed every four hours around the clock and that is quite a job in itself.
Thanksgiving Day for us was the usual “eat all you can and then eat some more” kind of holiday and we were ready for a relaxing evening of watching TV, then playing with, and feeding the chinchillas in our rescue. Later that evening we got word about the plight of Wes and Susie and their plea for someone to help. We immediately got on the phone and arrangements were made for us to drive to Florida (from North Georgia) the next day to pick up the chinchillas. It was about 9:30 pm when we got off the phone and we had to get transport cages ready and loaded in the truck. We had to be sure all our animals had plenty of food and water since we would be gone all the next day. We finally got into bed and after about four hours of sleep, we started the drive to Florida. We had to leave early to get to Florida before dark so we could more easily find the ferret sanctuary.
We arrived late in the afternoon and found Susie and Wes loading two chinchillas and a cage into a van. An acquaintance of theirs from another rescue had adopted two of the 16 chinchillas. That meant we were bringing back 14. We got busy transferring chinchillas into transport cages and loading their cages and supplies into our truck. Then we began the long trek back to north Georgia. We finally got back and had to unload the chinchillas and get them set up temporarily. We had been on the road for a total of 19 hours and were very tired but the chins couldn’t wait. We slept for a few hours and then started making assessments. We determined which were boys and which were girls and which ones might need extra care. Many were underweight and a few were overweight. All of them were filthy. Nightly dust baths would be in order to get their coats back into condition. Some of them were so scared of humans that they would scream when we came near the cage and a few were tame and curious. Any of the females could be pregnant so we had to treat them like they were until we found out otherwise. We started them on supplements just in case. There was one little ebony male that had been severely mistreated. He was a skinny little guy and you could even feel his bones through his skin. He was missing a lot of fur and all the fur was completely gone from his tail. Despite all his problems you could see hope in his little eyes. It just broke my heart to think what these innocent creatures had been through.
There were chinchillas of various colors and ages. That leads us to believe the woman had fallen for the “breed chinchillas for profit and get rich quick” misnomer that has peaked the interest of many hopeful basement-breeders over the years. I’m sure that after a time she figured out that there is not much money to be made breeding chinchillas on a small scale.
Whatever the motives were of the woman who gave up these chinchillas, we are grateful that she didn’t pay the animal shelter to take them or dump them on the side of the road; that would be a certain death either way. We’ve only had them in our care for a little while but they are already beginning to blossom. The ones that were starved are filling out and have become more active and playful. The ones that were severely abused will take more time to learn to trust humans but I am confident that they will come around in time with patience and love.
Article and photographs ©2004 Renee Trenholm
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