Starter Chinchillas!

[Akunaferret]

So while playing with my chins this evening, I had a sudden thought!

There is one chin that has captured our heart and started the trend, how did you get your first chin? And for the breeders: what made you want to breed? This should be loads of fun ^_^


My answer:

I got Flynn from a friend who was moving and felt that Flynn deserved a better life, so he came to me

 

[michellemonster]

well i had wanted a chin since i was 14 years old. but my parents wouldnt let me get one. so when i moved out on my 18th bday withing a month i went to a store and bought drakenstein. he was this little chin hiding under a hidey house. it was instant love and bought him right then

 

[Morrigan]

I was volunteering at a small animal rescue (I'm a rat person) and there were these ridiculously cute little fuzzbutts.
I hadn't really interacted with chinchillas much, but I started letting them out to play after I was done working with the rats. We had a pair and 3 singles, and the pair were sweet and interested in me more than the others.

Over about 6 months I spent more and more time with the pair, showing them to potential adopters and cringing as people grabbed at them and lecturing parents about how chinchillas weren't the cuddly pet their 8 year old wanted.

Finally we got a mom and daughter (tween age?) and the mom said she could have them if she did something for a month, and she was 2 weeks in. As I watched her with 'my' chins, grabbing at them and trying to hold them and fur flying everywhere while I told her not to over and over...

I went home and cried. I couldn't imagine my sweet girls with someone who didn't respect them. The reason they sat on my knee and climbed up to my shoulder was that I kept my hands to myself.

I finally convinced my partner, and took my girls home. Slowly they're getting more used to us, and I'm getting better at owning herbivores. I don't regret it for a moment, best weeks of crying and pleading ever

 

[ChinnyMom]

I hardly even knew what a chinchilla was, other than seeing the odd photo of them here and there. one day i was cruising the pet section of my local kijiji and saw an ad for 'chin babysitter wanted'. i figured why not, i could use a few extra bucks, and i've had experience with other rodents before, and called the lady up. next thing i knew, Gery (the babysitting chin) had climbed right into my heart and i knew by the time she went home, that i would be getting my own chin. that is when, by sheer luck and some mad googling skills, i found my Rhino.

so the first chin to melt my heart wasn't actually my own, but a sweet little standard grey girl staying here for just over a week that opened up my heart to these little demanding fuzzybutts :heart: and now my Rhino has the best life he could possibly dream of, spoiled rotten and loved to bits.

 

[Chin_Parent]

Chinchy was the one that started it all. We got him back in January when we moved into our new apartment. Our landlord actually offered him for free along with the apartment, lol. He's the sweetest little chinchilla ever, and loves scritches. He came with a feisty ferret cage that didn't have any wood chews, and was loaded with plastic. He was also being fed guinea pig food and no hay.

Now he's in the same cage, sans plastic, and enjoying his yucca and willow chew toys and new fleece liners that I made him, while munching on oxbow and orchard grass. I'm so glad to have him in my life.

 

[Pikaia]

My fiance and I were talking about getting a pet for a long time. Around three years. We didn't know what to get and cats/dogs were not allowed in our apartment. We started to research chinchillas, we both agreed they were awesome! I bought my first chinchilla (Chichi) off Craigslist and a month later she gave birth! I had no idea she was pregnant and I was never told there could be a possibility. LOL.... So, now I got three for the price of one. I love Chichi and her little fuzzbutt kids, Tribble and Tia

 

[Airyn]

I got my first chin, Friskers, when I was about 14 and fell completely and totally in love with him. Of course, he didn't come with any instructions and I was too young to know where to look, so his life, while very well fed, was incredibly short lived. After a 10 year stint with iguanas, I decided I wanted to try chins again and ended up with Boji. Growing up, I never had any pets give birth and I'd always wanted the experience. I started researching breeding, found Maia, and now have a finicky little chinchilla family that allows me to live with them.

 

[ticklechin]

My grandma bred chinchillas for fur in the 60s and early 70s, I was fascinated by them as a kid but could never touch or play with them. Fast forward to 2000 and a petco ad came to the shop with a sale on chinchillas and I bought my first 2.

 

[Pikaia]

My grandma bred chinchillas for fur in the 60s and early 70s, I was fascinated by them as a kid but could never touch or play with them. Fast forward to 2000 and a petco ad came to the shop with a sale on chinchillas and I bought my first 2.

Wow, that is very interesting, Dawn! I wonder what your grandma would think about you keeping chinchillas as pets?

 

[Ash]

I went to a high school 45 minutes away from where I'd grown up. There was a teacher there who was from the area, so we'd often talk about things up this way in Lancaster. The one pet store up here, That Pet Place, had a shop chinchilla named Chi-Chi. One night after having been up buying ferrets with my aunt and uncle, I'd seen Chi-Chi and proceeded to talk to my teacher about what I'd seen, and how cute they were, and how I wanted one. Turned out, he had chinchillas, and often had litters (I know this is a no-no now, but at the time I thought it was neat that his chinchillas just interacted in a chin proof room and had a fairly natural colony). I convinced my aunt and uncle to let me get one, and my teacher provided me with chinchilla and cage along with some food and dust to start me out at no cost. That was Hash and 6 years ago... It's been downhill ever since and now I'm up to 8 chins.. haha

As you can see, this is a slightly older picture of her...

 

[CrazyForChinchillas]

I had wanted a chinchilla for awhile. It was near Christmas time in 2007, and I looked through a local swap sheet newspaper and found a local chin for sale ad. It said it came with a cage so I called and made an appointment. I saw that Nibbler was hating their dog and the noisy environment and he was so cute nibbling my finger, so I decided to adopt him and named him Nibbler. His diet was terrible. I am very glad I got him.

 

[Akunaferret]

It's truly amazing to see how one little chin can influence our lives and how he or shee brought us here. I'm curious to read more ^_^

 

[dayofhope]

I saw a chin at a pet store when I was about 13ish and had to have one. I had enough money saved, so I was begging my mom. She told me to research it, so I did. Unfortunately, some of the research was wrong ("a great treat for chins is raisins! give them 1 or 2 a day!") so needless to say I wish I had found this website earlier. Anyway my chin baby is still here today, and I'm working on getting her a new cage and maybe someday even getting her a friend.

 

[addictedtochins]

I saw Chloe in Petsmart for free with a cage incl. I don't remember when but at some point she was the one who was paired up with a rabbit whom she loved. She rode around everywhere on his back. I didn't know about the diseases she could get from him. I fed her too much crappy food too. She got bloat and passed. I still feel terrible and guilty about that. So I went online and learned how to take care of them and got my Tibbit, I have seven happy healthy chins now.

 

[Annieo]

I just have one chin and I got him from the San Diego Humane Society. I had the most adorable hamster from Wee Companions that I adored. But he passed within the first year and I was heartbroken, so I started to look for pets with a longer lifespan.

I walked into the humane society to donate some of Hannie's food and supplies and saw Handbag. He was so personable. He had completely eaten through his intake paperwork that someone left on the top of his cage. I thought, this is the fellah for me.

They weren't terribly experienced with chinchillas but I scooped him up and gave him a furever home.

I don't anticipate getting another as I couldn't bear to change the close relationship I have with him. But...you never know.

 

[Dewdrop]

I remember my mom showing me one at a pet store when I was just a young kid. I was interested but never took it further.

Then last year I don't know what came over me..(Ok it was more like late 2009 I think) I started googling and researching. Got my two oldest involved in convincing their father...LOL...

I found a semi local breeder, and we brought Gemini and Leo home april 2010. In Feb this year we went back to her and got Phoenix and Polaris...

 

[chinchillasrox]

I saw my first chin in a small mom and pop petstore. she was so sweet and her cagemate was not so sweet but she climbed right on my hand. They were oon crap food and i switched that soon after. The i got her a playmate (ruby) and she had 2 kits than soon passed

 

[chin_gal]

I got my very first chin when I was 10-11 years old (so, about 12 years ago). It all started because my hamster had recently passed away and I wanted another pet to fill the emptiness. I had recently been to the petstore my then step-mom worked at, and she took out these funny little creatures to pet. They were so soft and neat! I was very fascinated by them. I then asked my Dad if he would get me a chinchilla for a b-day present, and he agreed. He took me to a breeder (byb I'm sure, they only had 4 chins) and I ended up getting my very first chin, Lucy. My step mom then took her brother, Schroeder (i did not live with my step mom/father). They were both 2 years old at the time. After about 2 years of having Lucy, my step-mom got bored of Schroeder and gave him to me. While Lucy passed away back in 2002 in a cage accident, I had Schroeder to the nice age of 12 when I had to put him down 2 years ago. And of course, over the years, I have had many chinchillas and will never go without a chinchilla in my life. They are amazing little animals, and to think... it all started with one.

Lucy:

 

[Akunaferret]

Lucy was so pretty!

 

[chin_gal]

Thank you! ) She was a very pretty girl, and I will never stop missing her. It's because of her death that I warn everyone of the dangers of wire cages and their spacing. The cage that killed her is the cage in that picture (that picture is only a month or two before I lost her). She had gotten her foot stuck in it overnight and I found her stuck and dead the next morning. All because the spacing was too large... But, on a happier note, I had a wonderful few years with her. She may have hated the attention that I had always tried to give her (and for a 10 yr old, that's hard to understand that chinchillas don't like the attention other pets seem to), but I still loved her so much!