Chinchilla reintroduction after illness

Hi everyone,

I have 3 female chinchillas: Prudy, Hiccup and Baby. Long story short, we bought the first two without realising that Hiccup was pregnant and ended up with another little one! They've lived in the same cage very peacefully for six years, and Baby has been with them since the day she was born. They've never had a fight or had any problems.

Baby recently got sick with an infection and we've kept her in a separate cage away from the other two while she recovered to top the infection spreading. Now she's finished her antibiotics and has the all clear from the vet, we tried to move her back into the cage with the other two. For half an hour or so they were perfectly fine and I thought they'd be happy to be together again. But now Baby and Prudy recently started fighting. They're barking at each other (not in a friendly way) standing up to each other on their back legs and chasing each other around.

I've temporarily separated them so that Baby is on the top level of the cage (with Hiccup - she's perfectly fine with her mom!) and Prudy on the bottom level, but does anyone have any advice on how to get them friendly again? They've been living happily together for seven years, and they've always loved each other so it's so sad to see them fighting now

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

Three way bonding can be tricky anyway, but it's also not uncommon for a bond to break due to one being away even in a pair bond. The best thing to do would be to try re-bonding Baby and Prudy, as if they are brand new chins. Have playtime with just Baby and Prudy, and put Baby in Prudy's cage when she isn't in there, and Prudy in the other cage when Baby isn't in there. This should help get them use to each other's scents again, you can also move items from one cage to another and give them all the same dust bath to help mix scents again too. If you do a search for chinchilla intros you'll come up with some more ideas. Make sure you allow playtime with just Hiccup and Prudy too though so that bond doesn't break too.

Unfortunately it is possible that the bond is forever broken though. Even chins that have lived together for years never apart can one day decide they don't want to be friends anymore. I'm not saying don't try, just that it's something to keep in mind, you may now need to leave it as a pair and a single. If they still get along you can have Prudy and Hiccup still play together though, so Prudy doesn't feel completely rejected, just without Baby. Also keep in mind that you can't rush it, chins go at the pace they feel comfortable, so the rebonding can take weeks to months if it ever works.