Introducing baby boy chin to daddy chin

[Swool17]

Okay so. Heres the current situation but its a very long story short. Ill give bullet points here.
-question is after the bullet points for anyone who doesnt want their back story-

*i adopted two neglected chins in july last year. They were 1.5 and two years old. And both malnourished
*we were told nothing about them other than that they were both males, and not related to each other biologically.
*one week later one of the males had two babies.
*we then found out we had a male and female, and that the female had been pregnant the whole time the past owner had her.
*separated the new parents immediately when we found the babies. (After thank god figuring out which one was the female by her nursing them)
*when babys were big enough, we separated them from momma. They were two males, and we didnt want them to breed with her.
*4 months later in November... She had two more babies. Which makes sense, because we thought she was a male, didnt separate her partner before the birth. He got her pregnant before we removed him apparently.
*one baby was separated (male) and the other has been left in cage with momma because its a female and they adore each other.
*all of our chins are very healthy finally. Momma and daddy are NOT malnourished anymore from the previous owners. (For anyone who might be concerned about back to back pregnancies, obviously we had absolutely no idea and she was pregnant when we got her. But that situation is handled and she has been retired from EVER having babies again, as we would have never done that to her purposefully)

THE QUESTION AT HAND:
The oldest baby boy from the FIRST litter in july was separated from momma, and not put with daddy. He was put in his own cage. He is now 9 months old and is outgrowing the smaller chin cage and needs to be moved in with his daddy to the adult sized cage.
Their cages have been right next to each other every since he was separated from the momma at 9 weeks old (would have separated them at 8 weeks but someone refused to learn how to drink water )
We have spent the last MONTH putting daddy and son together in a cage for dust baths 2-3 times per week. There was no signs of fighting, they were supervised every time heavily.
Today i pulled the plug and let them stay in the cage a bunch together, and weve had no issues for a good 5 hours. In fact they're cuddling as i type this.

My HUGE question here is.. If a chinchilla is going to reject a cage mate, how soon does it happen? Is it pretty immediate? Or could they turn on each other randomly in the middle of the night even if theyve been good all day together? Im a very anxious person and i want the absolute BEST safety for my chinnys and thats why i wanted to come here and ask people a bit more experienced in this before letting them spend a first night together while im asleep.

Any info is GREATLY appreciated!!

 

[Amethyst]

It sounds like they are ok together right now, if they didn't get along they would have fought by now. You can't really go too slow, so if you want you can just putting them together during the day for a few days then if things are still good do over night. I also know some people will even sleep in the room next to the cage the first night just to make sure.

Unfortunately they can reject a cage mate at any time, sometimes even years down the line, just like a married couple don't always get along for life. Most times there will be signs before anything really bad happens, lots of chasing, barking, fur flying, etc. to give you a warning that they need to be separated. It's just a risk you take when you put two or more chins together in a cage, some stay together for life, others for whatever reason don't. One thing to keep in mind, since you also have two females, when they go into heat it can cause the males to fight. It doesn't happen with all males, but something to keep in mind, if it does you either need to separate the males or move the males into a different room from the females.

 

[Swool17]

That all makes sense. Thank you! As an update, i did go ahead and separate them at night last night just incase, and put them back together in a cage today. Weve had no fighting, and they cuddled most of the day. but when it had been like 12 hours of them being together, they did start become mega active, and started doing some serious chasing in the cage. It was closer to their normal awake time (our bedtime, since theyre nocturnal) and im kind of unsure what is FUN chasing and what is ANGRY chasing if anyone has any way of explaining to me which is which? There was absolutely no blood, no biting, no baking, no fur pulling or flying, but they were just running circles around the cage at 100 miles per hour, then would stop. Look at each other. And then go again in the opposite direction and sometimes run into each other and bounce off, then pause, and run again.

It didnt SEEM aggressive, but i separated them just incase anyways because it made me nervous.

 

[Swool17]

It was like this, but with both of them in the cage and for longer durations before they would pause. (This is just the dad doing it alone because we took his son out for the night now)
Gizmo running

 

[Amethyst]

That just looks like zoomies, letting out pent up energy, had he gotten out to play and run around? Also that video is of the "adult size" cage? If so it's an ok size for a single chin, but may prove to be a bit too small for two chins, unless you do a daily out of cage play time. Some chins need room to get away from each other and have personal space sometimes, or it can cause fighting. Ideally you want the cage size to be a minimum of 8 cubic feet per chin to allow for personal space. I'm not sure if you were cleaning the cage or something at the time of the video, but it is also very empty with nothing to do, no toys, no ledges or perches, etc.

Here is a pic of my two boy's cage to get an idea of a more recommended size for a pair (double Ferret Nation cage).

 

[Swool17]

Oh yes cages had just been cleaned. And were under heavy quarantine at the moment in my state, so i can't go buy or replace some of his normal play things. He does have two other ramps, house, hammock that are all out of the cage and were being cleaned. As far as cage size, yes its the one im using for two chins currently but all of my chins get tons of play time out of cage every day. I dont work a 'normal' job, so im home all day for 5 days a week (and during quarantine ive been off work for 4 weeks). So basically, me or my husband are always home where they can be taken in and out constantly and theyre SUPER spoiled and get all the play time/out of cage time they want.

I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to have a cage as large as yours tho!! Where did you get yours?? Where i live, i havent even been able to FIND one that big!! The largest ive seen is the one i have (prevue chinchilla cage, large size)

 

[Amethyst]

Since they get plenty of playtime the cage size should be fine, and I'm glad the cage isn't normally that bare, it made me sad. I have seen some chins living in cages like that with nothing in it and the person is clueless that they need anything else.

My cage is a double Ferret Nation cage, I don't know where you live but they are found from several places in the US (Petco, PetSmart, Amazon, Chewy.com, Ferret.com to name a few). I live in Canada but they use to sell them at Petsmart here, but not anymore. Another idea is to check classified ads, people do sell them from time to time.

 

[Madip]

I’m not sure if you have Facebook? I have seen many cages for sale on fb. Not all at once but for like a solid month or two I was like stalking fb market place to try to get a good deal. I ended up finding a double ferret nation for I think $150 which included a very very nice wheel that is silent.(worth $100+). They also included a travel cage and a dust bath. Everything was in great condition obviously not brand new but great deal. A week or two after I bought a add on unit for my chin since I’m trying to introduce him to another chin for a pal. I fully recommend ferret nations since they have the expansions for in the future.

When I was first looking at cages there is a cage that also allows add ons just pricey it’s by exotic nutrition. Not sure where they ship to.
GOOD LUCK!
https://www.exoticnutrition.com/Products/4-Level-Mansion__GB13221A-comm--spc-GB13221AE.aspx

Oh yes cages had just been cleaned. And were under heavy quarantine at the moment in my state, so i can't go buy or replace some of his normal play things. He does have two other ramps, house, hammock that are all out of the cage and were being cleaned. As far as cage size, yes its the one im using for two chins currently but all of my chins get tons of play time out of cage every day. I dont work a 'normal' job, so im home all day for 5 days a week (and during quarantine ive been off work for 4 weeks). So basically, me or my husband are always home where they can be taken in and out constantly and theyre SUPER spoiled and get all the play time/out of cage time they want.

I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to have a cage as large as yours tho!! Where did you get yours?? Where i live, i havent even been able to FIND one that big!! The largest ive seen is the one i have (prevue chinchilla cage, large size)

 

[Madip]

T

I’m not sure if you have Facebook? I have seen many cages for sale on fb. Not all at once but for like a solid month or two I was like stalking fb market place to try to get a good deal. I ended up finding a double ferret nation for I think $150 which included a very very nice wheel that is silent.(worth $100+). They also included a travel cage and a dust bath. Everything was in great condition obviously not brand new but great deal. A week or two after I bought a add on unit for my chin since I’m trying to introduce him to another chin for a pal. I fully recommend ferret nations since they have the expansions for in the future.

When I was first looking at cages there is a cage that also allows add ons just pricey it’s by exotic nutrition. Not sure where they ship to.
GOOD LUCK!
https://www.exoticnutrition.com/Products/4-Level-Mansion__GB13221A-comm--spc-GB13221AE.aspx

Also a lot of the used cages I seen were also selling them with the wooden poop guards all the way around!

 

[Swool17]

Ahhhh ferret nation, i should have thought of them to check online for. Im in a super small town in Michigan in the USA. We have a walmart, a tractor supply co. And a rural king store and theres only one petco within driving distance and its small. All 4 stores have close to NOTHING for chinchillas so ive been pretty restricted on what i have available to buy in stores, ESPECIALLY because of quarantine and covid19. Im always caution about buying anything cage wise on Facebook market, just because im super anxious about maybe the last pet that person had having some sort of passable disease. I would be way too worried that i wouldnt be able to clean it enough for it to be completely safe for them.
(They are my absolute everything. And im always nervous something will happen or ill do something wrong. So im overly cautious. Momma chinny had runny poos one time and i basically stayed up ALL night with her. Turns out it was nervous poos and not sick poos. Lmao)

I usually get them tons of play toys- they LOVE wood chews and Timothy hay balls, hammocks, hay twists and such. But with the driving bans and me being off work ive been struggling to be able to get them much. They still have hammocks, wood houses, hiding tube things (made of wood), and theyre out of there cage a ton with us too. We have a chinchilla proofed room theyre allowed to come out of the cage and be placed in where they can roam and jump and run til their hearts content. And we dust bathe them whenever they want it basically (the one chinchilla is trained to ask for it by booping his dust bowl with his hands and standing up and kinda waving at us. Lol)

Due to quarantine, i am also looking at hand making a lot of new cage stuff (since what else is there to do right now? Lol) is there a safe store bought wood i can use to make pegs and houses and such? We have a Lowes hardware store thats within driving distance and my dad is a professional wood and metal worker for his like of work, so basically, i have a garage full of tools i can use to make them absolutely anything they want wood/metal wise. But im definitely unsure what types of wood im allowed to use to build them things. So safe wood type suggestions would be appreciated. As well as some ideas on some things i can make for their cage until all of this blows over?

They used to have some wooden pegs we made for them to climb and perch, but we took those out because they started gnawing on them and we didnt know if that wood was safe enough. It was untreated Ash.

 

[Amethyst]

Here is a good list of safe and unsafe wood Safe wood and ash is a safe one. I rarely buy things at the pet store for my chins either, it's all either repurposed stuff or from online vendors. I live about a half hour drive outside a small town (has a small livestock feed shop so I can get chin food and hay but that is about it) and the city is about a 2 hour drive, lol so I understand not having things close.
Some cheap ideas you can get at stores would be clay pots (if you look I have one just outside their house) just put a washer on the inside, a bolt though the bottom drainage hole and a washer and nut on the outside to attach to cage. You can get big ones for the chin to hop into or smaller ones as hopping spots. I also have an old metal coffee tin that I cut the bottom off of and use as a tunnel, just make sure you sand down the edge so it's not sharp. You can also make popsicle hanging toys, make sure you get food grade popsicle sticks not craft sticks, just drill a hole and you can use stainless steel wire to thread them onto and just bend to hang in the cage. You can also buy metal toy skewers (or these), I prefer the parrot ones since they are bigger, and you can cut up and drill chunks of safe wood and other chin safe chews (pumice/lava chews, coconut shells, loofah, bamboo shredders, willow shapes, etc) to hang on them. I normally buy toy parts in bulk from online vendors and have 3 skewers that I refill over and over. My guys also like the palm leaf shredder (also in the bird section), I just cut a several inch strand of it at a time and weave it in the bars or into toys.