aggresive introduction

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celmisha

celmisha

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 11, 2011
Messages
47
Location
NorCal
hey everyone,

i just brought home my second chinchilla today (marley), and my older one (remi) didnt mind him until a couple minutes ago when they touched noses through the cage barrier. remi went BALLISTIC. he did about 50 laps around his cage and came back to the barrier and started lunging at marley.
um, is this normal? should i be worried? when i was picking out marley we brought remi and they were a good match (like grooming each other and chasing and stuff).

thanks!

-caroline
 
First of all, any new animal should be quarantined from your others. It is possible for animals to have illnesses. They may not show them when you get them. However, the stress of a move, a new home, new surroundings, etc. can lower the immune system and create opportunities for illness to take over. These illnesses can be contagious and your other chin's health can be put at stake. The quarantine should be at least 30 days of isolation from other animals because of this. Please keep an eye on both your new chin and old.

Second, I would be wary of any rescue/breeder that allowed someone to bring their own chin in contact with theirs. That is a very good way to get disease brought into your animals and I would not expect a reputable breeder/rescue to allow this. This would cause me to be concerned of the health and care of the animal while it was there. It also gives you absolutely no idea how the chins will act in their home environment.

As for introductions, they can't be rushed. I would leave them completely separate for several weeks anyway, even though quarantine is worthless at this point. This will allow the new chin to settle. Chins are territorial- they will act completely different when taken out of their home environment and put into a new one. That is probably why they were grooming at the breeders...your chin was in a completely new area and was probably confused as to what was going on. Now that he's home, he's in familiar territory.

He obviously displayed an aggressive response. After keeping them separate for several weeks you can try introductions again. If you use the search function at the top of the forum, you can turn up a lot of threads discussing introduction techniques and people's opinions on them. Keep in mind that some chins hate other chins and will not accept a cage mate at all. It is not unheard of for chins to seriously attack and even kill one another.
 
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I picked up Marley at an humane society where they were having an event, and had introduced Remi to him at an exotic vetrinarian after he had a check-up the day before, so I find it very unlikely that Marley would have a life-threatining, contagious, disease.

Wow, I've never heard of a chinchilla being quarentined before in all the research on the internet, reading books, talking to breeders/rescuers/exotic vets I've done. But thanks for your opinion!

-Caroline
 
I'm sorry, then you did not talk to good breeders, rescuers, or websites. Anybody that knows anything about chinchillas (or rats, etc.) knows that a quarantine is the very first thing you should do. There are many, many rescues on this forum, and every one of them will tell you to quarantine when you first bring a chin home, as will any reputable breeder. Not all vets will recommend quarantine, but if you were to talk with them about it, they would certainly understand the reasoning behind it.
 
celmisha said:
introduced Remi to him at an exotic vetrinarian after he had a check-up the day before, so I find it very unlikely that Marley would have a life-threatining, contagious, disease.
Click to expand...

What sort of check up did the vet do? Did he do full faecal sampling for example?
You would be surprised what life-threatening, contagious diseases are missed by vets on a simple checkup - parasitic gut infections, pasteurella .......


Wow, I've never heard of a chinchilla being quarentined before in all the research on the internet, reading books, talking to breeders/rescuers/exotic vets I've done. But thanks for your opinion!
Click to expand...

Quarantine is very important for a number of reasons, including getting to know your new chinchilla's temperament etc. I do wish people would take their time with new chins rather than stuffing them into a stressful environment straight away - it's not fair on the chins for a start & it can lead to all sorts of problems.


One of the things you will gather from this forum is that there is an awful lot of misinformation around regarding chinchillas. Stick around, you'll find lots of good info on here. ;)
 
I did do a lot of research regarding this, like on
http://www.huggablepets.com/huggablepets/addingchins.shtml
and
http://www.chinchillasource.com/introducingchinchillas.html
and
http://www.chinchillarescue.org/introducing.html
and read books like BARRON'S Chinchilllas (both) which doesn't say anything about quarantine. I can assure I love my chinchillas to death and would never put them in harms way purposely just to rush this process. If you say quarantine is a must, then so be it and I will do it if I get another chinchilla, but for now it's worthless.
I am keeping them in separated, just like all of the above state, with a small barrier, and plan to do that for however long it takes for my babies to settle in.
 
I know 1st hand your third link gives bad advice. I have seen it with my own eyes they feed dorito chips, appricots, human oatmeal cookies with raisins, corn on the cob, and the death ball is used for the rescue chins exercise.
 
As I said, there's a lot of misinformation around ..........

If you really want to do the best for your chins (which I am sure you do) then stick around the forum.

Can you answer my question about the vet visit/check? I'm curious to know what kind of check the vet did.

Also, quarantine now is not worthless - if you have the chins in separate cages then put them at opposite ends of the room (or even in separate rooms if you can) & use this time to get to know your new chin's behaviour, eating patterns, poop consistency etc - you'll find a lot of useful info out about your new chin by just observing & monitoring him. It will also allow him to settle in to his new environment.
 
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That's really horrible.... I guess you can never trust what you read.

I wasn't there for all of the check-up, but I think he did a full physical and got stool samples.

I don't have another cage, right now I am just separating my FN142 in half. I can cover up the hole so that they can't see each other if that would help, though.
 
I wasn't there for all of the check-up, but I think he did a full physical and got stool samples.
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Really? Why not?

Don't take it as an attack, just curious. I've always been with my animals unless they had to get an x-ray.
 
I adopted Marley from a rescue and they invited my family, Remi, and I to come to the vet where they were having all their chinchillas checked to match up after. There were a lot of different chins there, and they would let us match up right after the chin was checked. We just got there when Marley was getting his checkup.
 
Wait, Dawn? Are you serious? That's where I adopted Marley from....
Oh god, the poor thing! How could they? That's .... I'm literally speechless.
Holy crap...
 
It seemed inadequate! It also seemed very odd that we were coming to a vet to match him and they left me alone to watch the two together! I mean, I've only had Remi for a little over a year, but how could I have been so STUPID?
Thank god I'm part of this forum...
 
it's ok celmisha, you didn't know.

there are so many breeders, rescues, and owners out there that don't have all of the correct information on chins. and then there are those that truly don't care to learn anyway. it's the latter group that i shake my head about.
 
Thanks, chinny. But I should've done more research on this place.

And actually Claire I do have another cage but it's really small with wire shelves and bottom. Should I still put him in there?
 
Your story confirms my suspicions about the vet check. :(
A quick vet check does not really mean much - unless a chin has obvious signs of illness then most vets just do a quick once over. As I said above, some problems are not picked up.


celmisha said:
Thanks, chinny. But I should've done more research on this place.
Click to expand...
We've all made mistakes so don't give yourself a hard time about it ;)
The benefit of a forum is it is live, (usually) up to date with info & you get lots of different perspectives (breeder, rescue, pet) & experiences.

And actually Claire I do have another cage but it's really small with wire shelves and bottom. Should I still put him in there?
Click to expand...
How small is small?
You're making big changes to both boys & if it was me I would separate them & let them both settle down, monitor your new chin & get to know him.
http://www.davidson-chinchillas.co.uk/pages/quarantine___chinchillas.php
 
I thought as much you got the chin from them, look at the book Joy of Chinchillas they gave you, you will see in nutrition where the corn on the cob, blueberries, Kiwi fruit and the such is stated along with alot of incorrect info. I have done many many adoption events in the past with them, fostered many many chinchillas and did chinchilla 101 classes but the last adoption event where the head of the organization fed the rescues the doritos and the cookie and we might as well have been talking about two different animals, their info on care and mine. AND the death ball I can't deal with anymore so I have stopped. They have been around for a LONG time and there is no re-educating them. The health exams IMO at Adobe are just quickies and other than the screening for the giardia not much use.
 
These would be the geniuses who also say that as long as humidity and temperature combined is no higher than 150, your chins are fine. Sooo......if your chins are sitting in 110 degree temps with 40% (or no) humidity - it's all good.

Scary that they consider themselves a "rescue."
 
photo.php

I don't know if this link will work, but here is the cage I've put him in... is it too small? And it has wire shelves but they're less than 1/2 an inch, so...
 
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