Pairing chinchillas

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Joined
Jul 4, 2016
Messages
21
Location
New York
I currently have a male chinchilla who I rescued from Chin Friends on Long Island and I believe he was 4/5 when I rescued him so I believe he is about 5/6 years old now. A friend of mine is a vet tech and a girl she works with has a male and female chinchilla and they had babies. I'm interested in getting the male chinchilla baby from her but I'm worried about my chin and how he'll react to it since I don't think he's ever shared a cage with any other chins. Any suggestions for pairing them? Anything I can do before I have them meet, etc.

Thanks in advance!
 
There is no way to know for sure ahead of time if a chin will like any one other chin. A lot comes down to personality, just like not every human likes every other human. Your best bet is to try to match personalities, submissive/submissive or submissive/dominate, dominate/dominate is unlikely to work.

Another thing you want to do when bringing a new chin into the house is quarantine it in another room away from your current chin for 30 days. This not only gives any illness time to show itself before exposing your current chin, but also gives the new chin time to settle in. It's best to get a good idea of how the new chin acts, eats, drinks, etc, before you add another chin into the mix which could cause the new guy to act differently. The month also gives you time to start establishing a bond with the new chin.

There are various ways to go about the intros and bonding process between the chins, but no one foolproof way. The way I've done it in the past was slowly move the cages closer over weeks until they are next to each other without fighting. I also gave them playtime together to get them use to each other. Other methods include putting both in a small carrier and going for a drive, the idea is that they bond over the "scary" car ride. You can also try cage swapping, put them in opposite cages (without the other chin) to get use to the scent of the other. Once you feel comfortable with them getting along outside the cage pick which cage you want them in and do a deep clean to remove all scent and rearrange and/or add new things so the cage is new to both.

If in the end they don't get along you need to be prepared to house them separately for their lives. Bonding can take anywhere from days to months, you can't rush it, chins go at their own pace. If at any point together (during intros or even years after bonding) they get to the point of drawing blood, that is a clear sign they aren't going to work. Chins can and do fight to the death, so once blood is drawn you can no longer trust that chin wont kill the other.
 
There is no way to know for sure ahead of time if a chin will like any one other chin. A lot comes down to personality, just like not every human likes every other human. Your best bet is to try to match personalities, submissive/submissive or submissive/dominate, dominate/dominate is unlikely to work.

Another thing you want to do when bringing a new chin into the house is quarantine it in another room away from your current chin for 30 days. This not only gives any illness time to show itself before exposing your current chin, but also gives the new chin time to settle in. It's best to get a good idea of how the new chin acts, eats, drinks, etc, before you add another chin into the mix which could cause the new guy to act differently. The month also gives you time to start establishing a bond with the new chin.

There are various ways to go about the intros and bonding process between the chins, but no one foolproof way. The way I've done it in the past was slowly move the cages closer over weeks until they are next to each other without fighting. I also gave them playtime together to get them use to each other. Other methods include putting both in a small carrier and going for a drive, the idea is that they bond over the "scary" car ride. You can also try cage swapping, put them in opposite cages (without the other chin) to get use to the scent of the other. Once you feel comfortable with them getting along outside the cage pick which cage you want them in and do a deep clean to remove all scent and rearrange and/or add new things so the cage is new to both.

If in the end they don't get along you need to be prepared to house them separately for their lives. Bonding can take anywhere from days to months, you can't rush it, chins go at their own pace. If at any point together (during intros or even years after bonding) they get to the point of drawing blood, that is a clear sign they aren't going to work. Chins can and do fight to the death, so once blood is drawn you can no longer trust that chin wont kill the other.


The car is not so much stress them into liking each other. It is a big distraction that can be stressful but it lets the chins get use to each others scent and having them around while being distracted. If you get lucky they snuggle up and are best buds by the end of the drive. It works great for me since I was driving 2 hours when picking up my fosters. Also a totally neutral territory is needed so they do not feel the need to defend their home. I can not stress how important neutral territory is for getting your chins together.

Ps. The car ride works magic for females or male female pairs. Not so much males they need a little more time.
 
Okay here is my issue. I don't have two cages and I don't want to have to buy another cage. Is there any other way for me to bond the baby and my chin or is the best bet to not bother then? I want to at least see if I can bond them so would it work if I put them in the carrier together or a class fish tank or something with some dust on the bottom and see how they react to each other? Or can I close the one level off from my cage and just keep each of them on one level to get them used to the scent? I have the ferret nation cage
 
Okay here is my issue. I don't have two cages and I don't want to have to buy another cage. Is there any other way for me to bond the baby and my chin or is the best bet to not bother then? I want to at least see if I can bond them so would it work if I put them in the carrier together or a class fish tank or something with some dust on the bottom and see how they react to each other? Or can I close the one level off from my cage and just keep each of them on one level to get them used to the scent? I have the ferret nation cage

If you can't cage them separately I would say no to getting another chin. Even with bonding pairs they do sometimes need to be separated, like if one is sick or hurt, but sometimes because they no longer get along. You can't tell in just a few minutes if they will get along or not, it normally takes days to months. I've also had chins that enjoyed having a playmate, but wouldn't tolerate another chin in their cage. So just because they get along in neutral territory does not mean they can happily live together in the same cage.

Also as I said you really should quarantine a new chin away from your current one anyway, so you need a second cage for that anyway. Splitting the FN cage can work after the quarantine, if they don't get along, but top and bottom they really wont be able to get use to each other since there is a floor between them. You'd still have to do other intro/bonding methods.

As Snowflake311 has said, some people do have success with the putting them in a small carrier (so they can't move enough to really fight) and driving around for a couple hours. I've never tried that, and I have read of that not even working for some. I wouldn't put them in a glass tank with or without dust, they can overheat too easily and it's poorly ventilated, they would likely end up inhaling dust and get sick.
 
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