Proud new chin owner!

Last night I picked up two chins from Mt Zion Chinchillas! I would recommend Barb to anyone as a very knowledgeable and trustworthy breeder. The light ebony is named Nitro, it fits his personality. The dark ebony is named Casper because is he is shy, but still very friendly.

I just wanted to show them off! At first Casper was afraid to leave the oat container that was with them in the carrier on the way home but Nitro was click to explore and within the hour was doing laps. Within 24 hours they are both out and about, found the food,water, and hay, and are even using the litter pans! Im pretty sure I'm lucky on that one haha. I pretty much spent the entire night with them just talking to them and Ive been using their food and also pieces of chew sticks as treats. They already come up to me when I come to their cage and have even voluntarily jumped into my hand so Im pretty sure the bonding is off to a great start but I likely will not try to pick them up for about a week.

Anyway heres the cage and some pics of them! I have the bearing on the wheel tight right now so it can't spin because they are only 10 weeks old.

Lets just say I am beyond exited

Lovely chins, and I really like your set up. You've done a great job.

Great setup, and very cute chins! I look forward to seeing and hearing more about them!

Awww, what a cute pair!! :heart5:
I love what you've done with the cage too!
Congrats!! )

Nice job on the cage, I bet they are loving it! I love how tiny they look in that huge cage. Enjoy them while they are small, they grow up fast.

I just got a chin yesterday, and have a huge cage similar to yours, on the green fleece did you just loop it thru the bars? And fold the excess under the plastic plates of the floor?

Thanks everyone! We've been having tons of fun. Unfortunately the dark ebony has already had two vet visits now because of some eye discharge. Im assuming it was irritation from a dust bath and not an infection but he was put on antibiotics and drops to be safe and thankfully the eye has completely cleared up. It thankfully hasnt affected our bonding at all, if anything by me handling him often for the medicine and drops has made him that much more comfortable with me.

As far as the green fleece goes I did loop it through the bars and originally tried velcro at the ends. It held up at first but they eventually outsmarted it and started knocking it over. I now use snap buttons on the end and it holds up with no problems now. Ill post a picture to show what I mean.

Back to the bonding thing, Ive been very successful by actually using a hands on approach rather than letting them do everything on their terms as most people recommend. The first week I had them I took them out every night one at a time and held them for 7-10 minutes and watched tv and talked to them. At first I got a lot of vocal responses haha but they learned faster I feel that they could trust me as they became more and more ok with it. Now I started opening the bottom door and sitting in a chair with my knees at the cage to letting them explore my lap while making sure they cant escape to the floor. Im amazed at how well this worked since I constantly see people have trouble bonding. They both jump into my hands on command now, and Ive even had them fall asleep in my lap! They both also found out they could get inside my hoodie pocket lol. Just figured Id share in case anyone wanted to give that a try.

Anyway heres a few more pictures!