Any suggestions introducing new chinchillas?

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chin-chillin'

New member
Joined
Oct 12, 2013
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3
Hi I've been having soom trouble introducing a new chinchilla and was wondering if anyone could lend any suggestions or comments.

I recently purchased a new chinchilla as a companion for my 2 year old male, another male who is about the same age. I read a lot about introductions before beginning and tried to follow these instructions as best as I could. I first keep them in seperate cages in the same room for a week or 2, slowly moving the cages together. Eventually I put the cages so that they were touching. I have a double critter nation cage (2 normal sized cages placed on top of each other) , that can be sectioned off, so when they seemed to be used to meeting I placed the new guy in the other section of the cage. At first my original one seemed annoyed, but settled down after a week or 2. I then allowed them to run around outside of the cage in a neutral territory.
After some initial arguments their play time has turned into almost the same routine everytime. They initially take turns grooming each other, which inevitably leads to mounting. This isn't a huge issue, since the other will usualy leave without too much of a comotion, and the grooming will begin shortly afterwards. This will continue until my original one, (the smaller of the 2 by far) gets annoyed and throws a temper-tantrum. He will chase the other one, who is much slower until he catches up with him. The larger one will sometimes slip his fur, at which point I seperate them. I'll usually wait several days or a week and then try again, with the same results.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to make this introduction go smoother. It seems to me that they haven't established a dominance because one is bigger and stronger, but the other is quicker and sometimes more aggressive. I don't really mind keeping them seperated, since the cage doesn't take up any more room than it would it was open to both of them. However when I let one of them out to play, the one still in the cage because very annoyed. Aside from getting ride of one of them, are there any solutions to make this go smoother?
Thanks
 
Hi! I was wondering if you had any luck? I am currently trying to introduce two chinchillas as well.
 
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