Biggest mistakes

[smhluvsmh]

:hmm: I have only had my girls a little over a year and have learned so much from this forum. For all you experienced chin owners, what would you say are the biggest mistakes that either you have made or you have heard of new owners making? Mistakes with diet, husbandry, cages, just general care, etc. Thanks in advance.

 

[ReneeM]

I've only had chins since August, but started out on the wrong foot. My boys started in a plastic cage, had a plastic wheel, and the cage wasn't even big enough fit one chin. My biggest mistake was giving them yogurt drops! My vet told me point blank only to feed them to my chins if I wanted to kill them. I learned so much coming to this site! My boys had all of the proper supplies within a month of owning them I wasted so much money on the wrong supplies. I wish I had found this site before getting my boys!

 

[meiying]

smhluvsmh, I think I had my chin boys around the same time as you had your girls So I am pretty new too.
Just like ReneeM, I started out on the wrong foot too. E.g. Small cage, pellets with treat, the death ball....etc. But i have learnt my mistakes and am still learning.

I am waiting for my chewing toys from Twilight Chinchilla, I am so excited for my chins. I just couldnt find good quality, all natural chew toys from pet stores. I am glad that experienced chin owners here sell the right stuff and I can always find useful info here.

 

[smhluvsmh]

Meiying, you will love your toys from Twilight. Christine is awesome and my girls' cages are just about all her stuff. Never gets old and she always has something new!

ReneeM and Meiying, thanks for responding!

 

[ticklechin]

12 years ago when I got my first two girls from Petco, you name it and it was in stock at petco and was bad for chins I bought it. Cedar shavings, fruit melady, kaytee food and hay, yogurt drops, vit drops for the water, a 15X15in cage for two with a igloo and plastic shelves and pan, fabric cat carrier with pink sparkles etc, it was a wonder I did not kill them off in the two weeks it took me to find chins-n-quills and had to toss everything out and start over.

 

[Chub_Chub]

I think my biggest mistake so far was failing to recognize fighting when it was happening. Nothing major happened, other than having to separate them permanently, thank goodness!

 

[melbur10]

Coming From dawn I defin did not expect to hear that story!!

I guess we all start some where! Although I did my reaserch I was still guilty of raisins and yougurt drops as treats when I got my first girl 6-7 years ago

 

[kerri101]

I bought my chin and researched but a LOT of the sites were wrong..... I had bad kaytee food and gave my chin raisins for a week before I came here those raisins still give me nightmares poor chinny tummy Im so glad It was not a long time

 

[Danderson]

I got my first two chins from a pet store, they were a male and female pair and she was pregnant at the time...The petstore also had a baby available and they talked me into buying her as well and said that chins never ever will hurt a baby so I come home with all three and happily put them together in the brand new cage I had, then went off to the store to buy more toys for them....I came back a couple hours later to a dead baby...I was beside myself with guilt! I learned my lesson the hard way and now I research and research and then research even more before I ever bring home any animal....

 

[Lillybabe]

I did a lot of research before I got my little guy. I wasn't guilty of a plastic cage, I got an all wire one. I still have it in fact. However, it was a pain in the butt to clean and had a mesh bottom. It rattled like crazy when the chin ran around. My little guy was in it for a year until I conned family members into getting me a FN 142 for my birthday. I got one of those hanging hay feeders which are foot traps, had carefresh bedding for a bit, had Kaytee food for a short time. I got only pellets at least. I'd been warned of some things and had even found Chins and Quills before getting him or just after I believe. However the questions of raisins was still hotly debated and I gave them to him for probably about the first month or so. He had stasis early on which I believe were the first signs of his teeth issues but the raisins probably didn't help matters. I nearly lost him not six months after getting him and it made me a lot smarter. I threw out all the raisins and never looked back. I even joked to people that his name was Raisin yet he couldn't eat raisins. I had a plastic crock for a while. Thankfully he never chewed it. It came with one of those "all in 1" chinchilla kits that I got the cage with. Used cheap dust, etc. Overall I don't think I made fewer mistakes than I might have if I hadn't put so much thought into how to care for a chinchilla before I got one. I'd wanted one for 4 years before I finally decided to get one.

 

[Mystic]

I think my biggest mistake so far was failing to recognize fighting when it was happening. Nothing major happened, other than having to separate them permanently, thank goodness!

I can definitely agree with this. The loss of fur didn't alert me at first because I was told this may happen when introducing new chinchillas, but when it didn't stop within a reasonable amount of time I should have seperated them immediately. Also, they didn't seem to want to be around each other, sleeping on opposite ends of the cage, etc.

 

[Airyn]

I went through 5-10 of those SuperPet Plastic wheels before finding this forum. Boji's a pounder when he runs and Maia's just too heavy for them, so they kept breaking. I had 2 wire-bottomed cages and read that raisins and cranberries were safe, so I offered far too many each day (4-10/chin). I tried to feed Kaytee hay, but they wouldn't touch it, so I switched to Oxbow early on. I bought Boji a death ball, but as soon as I saw his poop stuck to his fur I threw it in a rubbermaid tub, where it sat collecting dust until I finally threw it out. I used plastic corner litter pans, which were demolished within 6 months with no pieces to be found. I couldn't get a handle on the chin-proofing, so Boji always got behind my computer desk and demolished every cable he could get his little teeth on. I still thank the powers that be that no one got hurt from my lack of knowledge. It's a miracle... really.

 

[ChinnyMom]

i'm lucky that i found this forum before my first chin came home! i was babysitting another chin when i joined CnH, and made the mistake of buying her a ferret hammock from petsmart. felt bad for the lil girl, she had nothing but wire mesh shelves to sleep on.

as for my own boys, i can't think of any major mistakes i've made with them, because i've had CnH to guide me since before Rhino came home over a year ago (wow! it doesn't seem like i've been a chin slave that long already, lol!).

 

[perabalaofmystery]

i did a lot of research but apparently not enough.
i got them vitamin drops, let them out with my other animals for a bit, had a really crappy cage. i was given a plastic house and death ball by my family but at least i knew better than to use them. though my cat when he was little got a kick out of the death ball he slept in it all the time.

 

[Khammy]

I would say my biggest mistake was being naive

I did do my research and looked up chin care before I bought one and took what I read as gospel. As I started buying more stuff for my chin, both online and at pet stores, I deferred to the experts that I was purchasing from since they're the ones with the products and web sites dedicated to chins. After continuous reading, I started getting confused with contradictions from person to person and site to site. I just found CnH a few months ago. This helps out so much more...

List of mistakes/misconceptions in no particular order...
1) dried fruits are good treats
2) any products with a pic of chins on it is tested and safe for chins (good thing I found no-no articles about the death ball when I was looking up wheels.
3) not quarantining my 2 girls when I first introduced them (I'm lucky that they were both healthy and safe and it's been about 2 years now)
4) this is a silly one so feel free to laugh at me... Believing that chins are monogamous! Haha. I read somewhere about bonding with males and females, and misunderstood it's meaning.

 

[fanofdmb84]

I did a fair amount of research before I got my first, but my biggest mistake was trusting the person I got them from! Not only did I believe her that they were both BOYS, but I also didn't bother to check for myself before taking them. Although I'm not sure knowing would have changed anything, but it would have been nice to know I was getting a male/female pair ahead of time :\

 

[lolanu]

I also did a lot of research, but not from this site. My very biggest mistake? Getting Eve neutered without knowing the vet, only hearing about them as an experienced exotic vet. I had plenty of minor mistakes too, gladly only one death-causing one.
Anyway, forgetting to latch cage and chins romping happily about my room with my Malamute sitting on my bed, giving them raisins, doing playtime with "rival" cages unblocked. Live and learn, so they say!

 

[starrynight0621]

1.) I purchased them from backyard breeders
2.) I did not quarantine them from each other
3.) I fed them one cheerio a day, which gave them mushy poo
4.) I had the wire hay feeder (foot trap!)... fortunately, we didn't have any accidents
5.) I gave them "spring water," which I thought was ok because it was filtered. But now they have giardia.
6.) They got 20 minutes of playtime a day when they were only a couple of months old

 

[ysy]

My biggest one is not having a chin-competent vet lined up for when I need it. Can't emphasize how important that is. Chins do get sick from time to time and when they do, they usually need a vet really soon. I took my chin to a e-vet once that didn't know what she was talking about, didn't tell me that she didn't know about chins, and I didn't know better. What she did aggravated the situation and because of that my baby now has special needs. I haven't quite forgiven myself for that one yet.

 

[Chub_Chub]

My biggest one is not having a chin-competent vet lined up for when I need it. Can't emphasize how important that is. Chins do get sick from time to time and when they do, they usually need a vet really soon. I took my chin to a e-vet once that didn't know what she was talking about, didn't tell me that she didn't know about chins, and I didn't know better. What she did aggravated the situation and because of that my baby now has special needs. I haven't quite forgiven myself for that one yet.

Don't beat yourself up on that one. When I was having an issue with one of my chins, I called several E-vets offices and specifically asked if they had experience, all of them said no. All of them were willing to take my money and potentially kill my chin with inexperience, tho.