Might be homing a second chilla and I have questions

[Jfaith]

Background - I have my little gray-man who is basically my only child. Energetic and fairly territorial over my attention to him. I have had him since 2014 and the previous owners at the time said he might have been 1 year old but we all have no *real* age. So Chewsiph is about 8 years old and been with me for 7 years. I have had other various house-hold animals through out this time ( currently still two indoor/outdoor cats who are afraid of the chilla ). He has moments of acting like he would like to pick a fight with dogs when we have any around. So he has been around other animals, through a cage, but has never been around any other rodent types really so maybe he'll be cool with it?

ANYWAYS....
I saw online that someone needs to re-home their 3 year old gray-male, Rango. I would be happy to * at least * be a half way house if they need someone immediate. Plus that lets the chins get a trial run to maybe having a second chilla around. I would need a good idea on the "what ifs" to this (especially with the background information of chewy having a bit of an attitude).

My questions are probably the obvious but any help will help ;
Is this just a bad idea over all?
Best key ideas on ways to do introduce them?
Is is bad for the newby to have a halfway home for a while or is that traumatic?
If I know for fact it won't work but I can be a temporary home, is it best to not introduce them fully since they wont be brothers?
Has anyone had this kind of age gap between floofs - is it an okay idea on age difference alone?
Is there any "extra" to two chillas - i.e. does the workload double or supplies feel overwhelming when having two mouths to feed?
And feel free to toss in any other information for me Thanks!

 

[tunes]

Bottom line is - have a second cage. There is no way to know if two chins will get along (regardless of age, etc.), or, if they do get along at the start that they will continue to do so. Any time you try an intro there is a risk. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. So if you're willing to have two chins in two cages due to a personality conflict, then I say go for it. I always try to have chins in pairs or more. I hate to see them alone. But, there are some chins that just never do well with a companion. If you have more than one chin, you need more than one cage.

I have 200'ish chins. Two would be a dream! Two is nothing to take care, at least, not IMO.

 

[Amethyst]

If you have room for two cages then it sounds like an ok idea. New chins should be quarantined from your current chin for 30 days before they are even in the same room though. Sometime illness can take time to show up, things like ringworm for example may not be immediately noticeable but is highly contagious and it's best to only have to treat one chin. It also allows the new chin time to settle in without the stress of a new chin, so you can get a better idea of personality and behavior. Once the quarantine is over and the chin checks out as being healthy, personally for intros I prefer to go slow. Start with the cages in the same room, then next to each other, if all is still good then short play times together as well as cage swapping to mix their scents, and work from there.

It can be traumatic to go from home to home, but if where they are now is not a good place or they can't wait on finding the perfect forever home then a good temporary home is better then staying in a bad situation or ending up with someone that doesn't know or care to learn how to properly care for chins. If you are not going to keep the new chin I would not go with the full intro, they can be in the same room after quarantine but it's not fair to bond them only to break the bond later.

Age has less to do with bonding then personality, I would say maybe a 10+ year age gap may be a bit much simple because one will outlive the other by a long time, and they do grieve when they lose a cage mate.

I don't really think having two is that much more then one, if anything it may work out a little cheaper for some things like food and hay since you can buy bigger bags which tend to be cheaper per pound. If they don't get along it is two cages to set up and clean, and two play times though. My two are caged together so toys and everything are shared and I still only have the one cage to by ledges and stuff for and to clean.