What is your experience with trimming chins whiskers?

[kittymuff]

My reason for asking is because I'm still working on bonding my two girls, its going well except for Melody chasing Zoey away and making some little noises, which of course is normal and expected. I was wondering if trimming her whiskers a little bit will make her calm down a bit? By no means is she being super aggressive or trying to fight, I just want to make sure bonding goes as smoothly as possible! Thanks

 

[Amethyst]

I would hold off on whisker trimming unless it's needed with a dominance issue. They do use their whiskers like cats do to help navigate (which isn't too much of a problem since they live in cages not in the wild) so it helps with dominance by causing them to lose a bit of confidence until they grow back. However they do need to figure out who is in charge, so unless she is being too forceful I would just let them figure it out.

 

[tunes]

I always trim whiskers when I put chins together, but I trim both chins, not just one. It doesn't hurt them and I have noticed no difference in balance or confidence in any of the chins I've trimmed (I've trimmed 100s). The only thing I've noticed is less aggression, however, I'm not sure it will work on chins if they are already scuffling. I do it when I very first put them together, along with a dust bath and some hay, and keep an eye on them. Usually, it works out very well.

 

[Pixie1984]

Personally, I don’t trim unless I’m dealing with chins I know have dominant personalities. It’s worked well in the past for me in those situations, one main one being when one in my male herd of 5 decided to start bullying a lower member away from food. It lead to a couple minor fisticuffs at dawn moments, so in that situation I trimmed the bully chins shorter than the one he was bullying & it worked like a charm. I’ve have had no more problems with them in the year since it was done.
Other times when I’m pairing dominant chins, I’ll trim both so they’re the same length, then let them trim each other’s as they sort out who is where in their hierarchy, mainly because I just prefer to just let them sort out their place in the pairing or herd between themselves.