420 Chinchillas Rescued

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kvatore

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 2, 2012
Messages
81
Location
Hillsboro, OR
I thought I'd post this here since I just saw it. Not sure of the exact details of this particular breeding ranch, but thought that everyone here on the forum would want to know about it if you didn't already.

First link is the abc 10 site and the second is PETA's.

http://www.10news.com/news/san-diego-humane-society-and-spca-rescue-420-chinchillas-from-vista-ranch

http://investigations.peta.org/chinchilla-farm-rescue/

NOTE: My biggest concern here is the 420 chinchillas that are now going to be in need of a home :(
 
Be aware peta is not telling the truth. This was a rancher who was trying to retire and sell the herd as a whole or as individual pets. The herd was bought and paid for in full and 100k was donated for their care! More than have of the peta video is not even the animals that were 'rescued'. The chins are all in good health and were well cared for. This is a perfect example of peta taking a normal sale and using it for their own publicity. There was no actual 'rescue' done here. The chins are now housed in non baby proof cages with plastic. They are miseducating potential homes with incorrect feeding insturctions.... the chins would have been better off left with the ranchers. To add insult to injury they are only charging $25 to adopt which will only encourage byb's and impulse buys at that price.
 
On another note they are not quarantining any of the chins or doing a pregnancy watch on any of the females. Its been less than 24 hours and they are already adopting out chins..... not how a proper rescue is done
 
I live in San Diego and have been to this chinchilla ranch several times and met the owner (including once when I was in Girl Scouts as a kid, lol). PETA is definitely overblowing the cruelty angle. If anything, the cages were a bit small, but the owner knew legit chinchilla information and sold good chin-safe items like flying saucer wheels, metal cages (like Martin's), wooden ledges, good pellets, etc. Having said that, after getting Lil Bubs (from Craigslist) I went back to this chinchilla ranch and found that the chinchillas were pretty bitey and asocial, so I decided not to get one from there.

I for one will probably be adopting at least one of these chinchillas, as I've now had Bubs for 6 months and was already planning on getting another one. :)

Dreamlite, how do you know that about the plastic cages and the bad info? What a bummer if that is the case! I'm going to try to visit or at least call the humane society this week to get more info.
 
On their care sheet and videos they posted. Ferret nation cages with plastic houses and trays.... they advise feeding cranberries and seeds, its sad they are misinforming people. No notes on the long life spans. They still have the breeding collars on in the videos.... they aren't hard to remove.
 
Ugh I've been seeing the posts on FB about this. Just hoping for well educated new chinnie owners. Maybe some of them will find their way here.

I'm also hoping for a sense of peace for the owners, I can't imagine how crummy they feel to have their ranch labeled as in need of a "rescue."

Damnit, PETA... smh
 
There is a lot wrong with the video, and apparently that humane society (misinformation, improper housing, and lack of important info) as already said. Also PETA is against keeping animals for anything, not only are they against the fur trade and meat industry they are against even keeping animals as pets. One thing I would like to point out, we as chinchilla pet owners owe a lot to fur ranchers. If it wasn't for the fur trade for one we wouldn't have pets chinchillas, but also a lot of the information and research we take for granted on nutrition, health, and even housing (to some extent) was done by fur ranchers, they have done a lot of good. I personally don't agree with wearing fur, unless it's from an animal you are eating too, but as I said the ranchers have put a lot of money into bettering chinchillas.
 
I agree Amethyst. I do hope some good owners can take in these chinnies and help spread the word on safe practices. I know some people in the rescue community here who can maybe help with that.

Speaking of which, I was planning on getting another chin in a few months when I've saved up a bit more cash (I wanted a $600 chinchilla fund so I could comfortably afford a whole new cage setup, wellness checkup, food, toys etc etc), but this is a very unique situation and I can definitely move up that timeline a bit. Still, I can't take one within the next few weeks at least. Does anyone know how long these chins are likely to be available? Could I maybe put one on hold for a while? I don't know how this works. I plan on calling the Humane Society tomorrow for more info but if anyone knows how the adoptions might work I am very curious.
 
At $25 each I don't expect them to last long. Wait a few months as people try to resell or bring them back to the shelter once the cute effect wears off.
 
"Rescued"...unfortunately, once again, PETA has done more harm than good. I expect most of these chins will live a year, tops. I wish there was a way to direct more people to these forums for GOOD info, so that we could educate everyone on the proper care.

What I'm honestly surprised at, is that PETA surrendered them to the SDHS. PETA NEVER surrenders animals. They usually just put them down if they can't find homes. And as for the unsocial chins, how do we know those weren't mean from the get-go, and used for the pelting? It makes sense to me to use an antisocial, bitey chin for fur, and then selling the friendly ones as pets. But that's just me. I personally have no issue with pelters, so long as everything is done humanely, and the chin leads a healthy life prior, which it looks like these guys did.

Sorry, rant over. bottom line, I hate PETA.
 
Another chin mill gone, in my opinion, all that place did was produce chinchillas and little else, good riddance to bad rubish. To call this place a ranch is a joke, they made chinchillas, had no pedigrees, showing? Yeah right, if it looks like a mill, call it a mill. I do not feel one bit sorry for those people. I find it funny that if you do a search here, some that are sticking up for them, bad mouthed them in the past. They deserve no sympathy, none.
 
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This whole thing is NOTHING but a FIASCO from start to finish. They were paid 50 grand for the herd by a celebrity named Sam Simon. He then paid another 100 grand to the San Diego Humane Society for their care. They are already adopting out females to people who are taking them straight home and just plopping them in with a male.... SMH!
 
Oh god, this is an even bigger mess than I realized. Check this out:

http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2014/aug/21/tp-mass-chinchilla-rescue-overwhelms-humane/

They're going to neuter all the males?!?! Isn't that dangerous and unnecessary? They're also requiring that you adopt them in pairs. I can adopt one chinchilla but I'm not sure if I should get TWO more when I've just had 1 solo chin for only 6 months.

I am pretty upset that people with so little chinchilla knowledge are apparently running this show...I don't know what I should do!
 
I mean really, these people had no business HAVING 400 chinchillas, why on EARTH were they still breeding????? 90 and 95 years old??? The should have stopped breeding years and YEARS ago, not just HEY lets retire and dump chins now, try 20 years ago. The bad guy is the breeder, not those who want to rescue them. No exit plan at all, just breed till the end.
 
Valley View Ranch was chinchilla central for SoCal since the 60s. Yes they started as a fur breeder, but then they changed to pets only. Say what you will about the small cages and "mill" atmosphere, but I know so many people who went to Valley View when their chinchillas were injured or when they needed special care, or when they could not take care of their chins anymore, and Lurlie always took the chins in no questions asked. It was the only local place where I could go to buy a well-made metal cage, a large metal exercise wheel, bulk pellets and dust, etc.

Also, I visited them around a year ago and they already knew they were going to retire this spring, so they were desperately searching for someone to take over the business. They would have retired years ago but they couldn't find anyone to take care of the chins. April 1st was the official close of business date but they've continued caring for the chins until now because they had no choice. So the humane society was really the only option, but then PETA and this Simpsons guy randomly stepped in and made it a publicity stunt. I feel really bad for the owners who were just in a tough spot.

And now SDHS is going to be neutering all the males and selling them off to people with no clue how to handle chinchillas? There's no question in my mind they would live longer and healthier lives where they were than where they're going. I feel sick about this.
 
I'm not a fan of the ranch in itself or their practices of not keeping pedigrees and producing just for pets and not for quality, but the entire situation has been blown out of proportion. The animals were purchased for $50,000 through a PETA operation, not surrendered. $100,000 was given for the care of the animals - more than what they need. The animals were not in poor health and all look to have been taken care of. Yes, there were some fur chewers, but most ranches have them, whether they want to admit it or not. If they were all gung-ho to euthanize by electrocution, I'm sure the fur chewers would have been first to go, at least this is a normal practice (mostly by cervical dislocation though).

They weren't in quick need of rescue as the HSUS and PETA have thus labeled it, to get more media attention. It does nothing but hurt the name for chinchilla breeders and ranchers that breed in runs and try to do the best by their animals. You may not like our practices, but there are some of us out there that do right by their animals that are now going to be scrutinized because of the photos of the breeding runs are leading to the description of "horrible living conditions" because the cages are small. I'm more worried about chinchilla breeders and ranches being attacked and hounded now because of the media this is receiving.

Also - even though the article before my post lists animals being adopted out in pairs and males being neutered and that they're not readily available - there were animals adopted out yesterday from the San Diego Humane Society - if you look at posts on their FB page, people are already posting photos of their adopted animals (who were in the SDHS's care for less than 24) next to an opposite sex animal in a cage beside it and another photo posted of one adopted already in the cage with a chinchilla the owner had in their possession. The adoptees are not researching and they see $25 chinchilla and POOF they're able to get one.
 
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If they have wanted to retire for years, how about stop breeding, wow that is a concept. Give it a few years and problem solved-chins sold or pelted. The problem would have resolved itself by attrition.
 
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