Introducing Bonded Pair to Current Chinchilla

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Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
7
Location
Boston, MA
Hi--

Apologies if this question has been asked a million times before, I tried to find my answer on the forums before posting with no such luck to my specific situation.

Has anyone ever tried to introduce an already bonded pair of chinchillas to a single chinchilla or vice versa? My boyfriend and I currently have one white chinchilla that's 1.5 years old and she's very crazy and active, probably a pretty dominant personality if I had to guess, and she's never been around other chinchillas before.

We found a listing online of a lady who is getting rid of her two chinchillas (mom is 6 years old, her daughter is 1 year old) because she picked up a second job overnight and doesn't have the time to take care of them anymore. She won't sell them separately because they're mom/daughter and doesn't want them to be apart, so I'm just wondering if introducing an already bonded mother-daughter pair would be a good/safe option for my chinchilla. We've done quite a bit of research on bonding chinchillas overall, as we want to get another one regardless, but there seems to be a bit of divide online as to whether or not trios of chinchillas work out well. Has anyone had good or bad experiences doing this?
 
Some people have had luck bonding a pair to a single, but a lot can go wrong. You could end up with the pair ganging up on the single, you can end up with the pair switching so instead of chins A/B paired and C single you have A/C paired and B as single, or you can end up with all three hating each other and needed to be separate.

The best chance of working is trying to introduce them one at a time, so they can't gang up. So have your current chin out and then the mother or the daughter not both at once. That way they each bond with your current chin separately then all together. But there is still never any guarantee they will get along, or you could get one getting along with your chin but not the other.

Chins can benefit from just having other chins around to chat with even if they don't want to be friends. I have had luck with having 3 females all enjoy play time together, but they were caged separate and none were bonded pairs. So some do even enjoy playmates even if they don't want a cage mate.

Trios that I've seen be most successful are related, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, or same gender siblings.
(Mixed genders work if you have say a neutered male and females, but I don't advise neutering, it's dangerous.)
 
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