Wee Viking
DIY-er
Good morning everyone. The site asks that we introduce ourselves first, so here we go.
I live in SouthWestern Ontario and have been keeping Chins for around five years now. I currently only have my five year old ToV female, but will soon be picking up a couple of kits from the local farm; the owners are retiring after 30 years of hard work and I wanted to get a couple more from their exceptional breeding program.
I jumped on the forum as there seems to be a vast wealth of info and tutorials here, and a lot of really good photography too
Gotta love a good chin mug!
What else? I am really into repurposing and DIY-ing as much as possible and actually built my first cage. It is actually about to be repurposed now that I have a two storey Critter Nation. I can't say enough joy about this cage btw!
Next project is removing all the shelving that came with the CN and replacing it with next boxes, bridges and custom shelving, I really think it will make it brighter in there for my girl. Plus it gets all that plastic out!
Chin history: I have been through the ringer with my girls in the past. When I first picked out my first two they were very happy and settled into their cage and surroundings like a dream. After the first week, my little mosaic was changing from her bouncy self and got downright depressed. She didn't want to eat and didn't want human interaction, the vet was sure she was being stressed at home, etc. I called the breeder and took her back for them to see what was up. Turns out, she wanted to live in the chin barn, because she perked up INSTANTLY when we stepped through the door. Happy bouncy and talking! The breeder and I both laughed and reintroduced her to their herd. She was happy (still is apparently) and that was the important part of it for me. The breeder handed me another kit to replace her, this one was incredibly human friendly and just wanted to be scritched. She was a little homozygous beige. This lead to complications later in her life, but she was an awesome chin! Came to her name, slept in your lap and wasn't afraid of anything. When she was three years old, she very suddenly went into increasingly severe seizures. I had her to the vet within twenty minutes and we ended up having to put her down. It was not fun and the breeder was so upset. Her line of homozygous had been very stable until that point. We never did figure out what happened, my vet thinks it may have been a genetic disorder as she had never seen anything like it.
Since we didn't know what had happened for sure, I have held off in getting any new chins until now so that I could be sure my ToV is good and healthy and that any additions to the family will stay that way too.
So... that's where I'm at. Long story... shortish.
When I get the chance to start uploading pictures I will upload my progress on renovating the cage for the newcomers and maybe some shots of the original cage before I take it apart and make it something new.
Cheers!
WV
I live in SouthWestern Ontario and have been keeping Chins for around five years now. I currently only have my five year old ToV female, but will soon be picking up a couple of kits from the local farm; the owners are retiring after 30 years of hard work and I wanted to get a couple more from their exceptional breeding program.
I jumped on the forum as there seems to be a vast wealth of info and tutorials here, and a lot of really good photography too
Gotta love a good chin mug!What else? I am really into repurposing and DIY-ing as much as possible and actually built my first cage. It is actually about to be repurposed now that I have a two storey Critter Nation. I can't say enough joy about this cage btw!
Next project is removing all the shelving that came with the CN and replacing it with next boxes, bridges and custom shelving, I really think it will make it brighter in there for my girl. Plus it gets all that plastic out!
Chin history: I have been through the ringer with my girls in the past. When I first picked out my first two they were very happy and settled into their cage and surroundings like a dream. After the first week, my little mosaic was changing from her bouncy self and got downright depressed. She didn't want to eat and didn't want human interaction, the vet was sure she was being stressed at home, etc. I called the breeder and took her back for them to see what was up. Turns out, she wanted to live in the chin barn, because she perked up INSTANTLY when we stepped through the door. Happy bouncy and talking! The breeder and I both laughed and reintroduced her to their herd. She was happy (still is apparently) and that was the important part of it for me. The breeder handed me another kit to replace her, this one was incredibly human friendly and just wanted to be scritched. She was a little homozygous beige. This lead to complications later in her life, but she was an awesome chin! Came to her name, slept in your lap and wasn't afraid of anything. When she was three years old, she very suddenly went into increasingly severe seizures. I had her to the vet within twenty minutes and we ended up having to put her down. It was not fun and the breeder was so upset. Her line of homozygous had been very stable until that point. We never did figure out what happened, my vet thinks it may have been a genetic disorder as she had never seen anything like it.
Since we didn't know what had happened for sure, I have held off in getting any new chins until now so that I could be sure my ToV is good and healthy and that any additions to the family will stay that way too.
So... that's where I'm at.
Long story... shortish. When I get the chance to start uploading pictures I will upload my progress on renovating the cage for the newcomers and maybe some shots of the original cage before I take it apart and make it something new.
Cheers!
WV
