Fur chewing in young chinchillas?

[Chinzilla]

I have two chinchilla's from separate places, who have been living together since they were eight weeks old. One is a Standard Grey female and is about a year or so old and the other is a Reverse Mosaic female who is about eleven months old now.

They have lived with two other chinchilla's in the past, but have since been living as a pair for quite some time now. They love each other and are always cuddling and taking care of each other.

Now...I suddenly have a dilemma. This morning all my chins were fine and happy, as usual, but this evening when I did my evening run of the chin room, I noticed that the reverse mosaic had a LOT of her fur chewed half-way down the length of it. It was all in the same general area, around her tail, hips and up her back a bit. It wasn't like that when I checked this morning before work, in fact, she was fluffy and perfectly fine. Same with her cage mate...and then I noticed she too had a patch near her hip that was chewed the same way.

I've never had this happen with any of my chins before and they have never shown signs of being fur chewers, either.

How can I stop this from happening again? I've separated them for the time being. I believe it is the Mosaic who is doing it because she had the most chewing going on.

What are the causes of this behavior? They aren't acting stressed, live in a very clean environment, get regular dustings, have access to fresh air from the outside, and are on a high-grade pellet food, plus timothy hay as well.

Thoughts or advice would be great. I don't want my babies to be stressed out or uncomfortable.

Thanks!

P.S - I don't know if this would matter or not, but their previous cage mate had also given birth to a healthy little violet fuzzball this evening as well. Could they maybe sense that and feel stressed about it for some reason? There were no complications and Mom and kit are doing wonderfully.

Thanks again.

 

[Dreamlite]

Stress, genetics, or cage mates can cause fur chewing. If its genetic there's nothing you can do about it. They will do it their whole lives. It can be 1 chin that's chewing everyone else in the cage. The only fix to that is to separate that chin. If its stress (which a new chin/kit could be), then removing that stress can cause the fur chewing to stop. Some chewers will do it their whole lives, some do it off and on, and some only do it once in their lives. Either way an chins that chew should not be bred due to the genetic factor.

 

[Chinzilla]

Thank you for your reply. I never intended to breed these girls, anyways, they're just pets. =) But I heard it could be gentetics...I own the mosaics Mother as well and she never had an issue with it, but it could have been her Father, possibley, who I do not own. It appears to be the mosaics habit and she just began chewing her cage mate.

Hopefully it's a one time deal.

By the way, the kit and Mother are not housed nearby or with these two girls. She is in the "Kit Room" where it's quiet and an easy surrounding for her and baby.

Thanks again!

 

[EBB]

I have also found that simply relocating a fur chewer to a new spot in the room can be very helpful. I;m not sure what it is about the change of scenery, but at least half of the rescues i've taken in stopped chewing after a switch or two and what's better, i've never had reports of animals beginning to chew again if i was able to get them to stop here. On the flip side, i have had a couple that wouldn't stop chewing no matter what i did. They still do ok once rehomed.