What noise is my chinchilla making?!

[Jake]

I recently got an 11 week old chinchilla and I'd say probably 3 days after I got him he started to make this noise. I had no idea that chinchillas made noises so I decided to look it up. After find out that it's completely normal for them to make noises I tried to narrow down what type of noise he is making. I couldn't figure it out.
Basically what he will do, is he'll run out of his cage, run around for a bit (maybe 5 to 10 seconds) and then he'll bolt back to his cage and start to make this noise.
Over the past couple of days he's been starting to do it a lot more and it's concerning me. I'm a first time chinchilla owner and I just want to make sure that he is as happy as can be! I have a video of the noise but it won't let me upload it so I'll work on getting a voice recording of it. Any information you all can give me would be helpful, thanks!

 

[tunes]

He's probably barking, or what passes for barking for chinchillas. It's their way of showing fear, nervousness, alerting the herd, or sometimes just because they are bored. Regardless of whether there is a "herd" around to warn, chinchillas often do this.

 

[Chinderella]

While tunes said it best, I just wanted to share this little anecdote.

My very safe, very happy (although very spoiled) chinchilla, who I share a tiny college dorm with, barks every night around 1 or 2 in the morning. The first couple of nights I would get up and stumble to his cage and sing to him and give him a treat to make him more comfortable. This was enabling the little mastermind. After several weeks of the same pattern, I finally left him be. In the morning, he was the same happy chinchilla, perhaps a little less smug.

However, your chinchilla is probably nervous or scared. If your chinchilla shows any signs of weight loss or stress, consider making some environmental changes to make your chinchilla more comfortable. My chinchilla enjoys songs from musicals or when I speak to him in very garbled french (I don't speak french, but english and spanish do nothing for him). If nothing else, time will probably help your chin adjust.