help with my chins

[ChinCinco]

I have two male chinchillas that I adopted together back in March 2009. When I adopted them they were caged together and they got along just fine until about August when they started fighting all the time. I ended up having to seperate them because I was afraid that one of them would hurt the other. They have been seperate for about 6 months now and I would like to try and get them back together. There cages are right next to each other but I'm wondering what else I could do to try and get them back together. Any suggestions and possibly any reasons why they started fighting all of a sudden??

Thanks!

 

[shubbles]

chins can have sudden spurs that they attack ones that they have forever bonded with you thought. What i would say is maybe do the cage within the cage method, but whoever attacked the other in the small, carrier kinda cage, Put a water bottle in there and for a few hours let them figure each other out. Supervise this and let them have supervised playtime. People also say trimming down the whiskers an inch and dabbing vanilla on the butt and nose is effective also. Hope everything works out.

 

[alli713]

Many times, once chins start fighting, they don't stop. I would be inclined to leave them apart permanently.

Because they have a history of fighting, you just never know if they'll turn on each other while you're not home to intervene.

That's just my opinion though..

 

[tunes]

Once chins fight, they rarely stop. I'm not talking about a little scuffle to assert dominance, I mean real fighting where they just don't stop. I would not put two animals like that back together. It's not worth the risk of finding one of them dead after he's had the stuffing beaten out of him, trust me.

 

[Riven]

Chins have stuffing in them?! Is it little black-ish colored pellets... because if so I think my chins' stuffing is falling out...

How old are the chins? If they were young when you got them it might be adolescence/hormone/territorial issues. Sometimes in cases like that, once they age a while and get over their major hormone spurts, they get lonely and realize there are no females around and will accept a cage mate again, but not always.

 

[Stackie]

I agree, I would be very nervous in trying to pair them up again if they were to the point of fighting constantly.

 

[ChinCinco]

They are both about 1 year old. Nemo is about 2 months older than Gizmo.