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Linda

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 3, 2009
Messages
220
Location
So Cal
An ad on Craigslist got me thinking again about chins and other animals. I know I've read that you need to keep chins and rabbits totally separate due to pasteurella. This ad on Craigslist implies a local rescue is doing otherwise -- and potentially keeping chins with other types of "exotics."

http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/pet/1740186528.html

What other animals need to be kept entirely separate from chins and why? Most pet owners seem to have multiple types of pets.

Linda
 
What makes you think the rescue/shelter is keeping chinchillas with rabbits and exotics? I was looking at the pics and I don't see any chins with buns, just separate pics. It is possible they have the chins in one area and the buns and exotics someplace else. Or am I not seeing something here?

As far as chinchillas with other animals, I don't think they should be interacting with any other animal and should only interact with other chinchillas.
 
My goal is to understand what animals shouldn't be kept in close proximity to chins and why.

On a different note, I guess I can ask that rescue, but I haven't personally found many rescues that welcome feedback and that really is not my goal with the post. I'm trying to learn about dangerous mixes. I'm guessing keeping dogs and cats in the same room with chins is fine just because many people seem to do it.

Are there animals that shouldn't be kept in the same room as chins due to diseases that are likely to transfer?

Linda
 
Pretty much any other animal could potentially transmit a disease (bacterial or viral) to a chinchilla. All can harbor things that could make a chinchilla sick. Sure, there are some that seem to carry things that are a little more contagious than what other species carry. Rabbits need to be away from the chins for sure...some people don't want cats around their chins because there is a chance that something could make a chin sick.

As far as feedback goes, what does it matter if the rescue doesn't like feedback? If you suspect that they are keeping the chins in close proximity with rabbits or rats or guinea pigs or lions or bears or dogs or cats, what would be the harm in contacting them to find out? Many rescues end up being inundated with all sorts of animals and they may not know how susceptible chinchillas are to becoming ill from another animal. It's good to point out things for the most part...it's someone else's problem if they get offended or not.
 
I have dogs and cats in the same area as my chins and a rabbit close by. I have had the rabbit for 5 years in a section close by the chins and have had no problems. The rabbit was born near chinchillas. Her breeder had raised rabbits and chins with no health problems with each other. I would not bring a rabbit in that came from a 'questionable' place/person because I wouldn't know in what conditions that rabbit was raised.
 
Cat litterboxes shouldn't be kept near chinchillas since the dust from scratching and such can cause harm to a chinchilla's respiratory system. Cats can also carry Bordetella which is harmful to chins as well..I assume the same would be a problem with dogs who have Bordetella. Cats also have a need to climb high and chins as prey animals do not handle animals being on top of their cages very well. I lost a chin to that...a cat got on top of her cage and she had a heart attack. So cats here are not allowed in the chin room at all...plus my one cat wants to kill anything she can get her paws on.

Dogs can have all sorts of diseases...some are zoonotic but most are not. I let my dogs walk in the room with me and things like that but no other animal is housed in the chin room or gets to interact with the chins. My dogs have a healthy respect for them so I know they wouldn't attack.

Rabbits, guinea pigs and other rodents shouldn't be kept in the same room, though other than the pastuerella I can't think of the other reasons. IMO, chinchillas should be housed in a room/area that only the chins have regular access to. Every rancher I've talked to put part of their success at not losing chinchillas to disease is because they keep the contact between chinchillas only. They've all told me that having a cat or dog pass through the room the chins are in is fine but it shouldn't be a regular thing and no other animal should be housed close to the chins.
 
I think anytime you house other animals in the same room, you run a risk of possibly facilitating the transfer of an illness if you don't wash your hands, change clothes, etc. between handling the different species. With rabbits, pasturella is the biggie. Most reptiles and poultry can harbor salmonella as their natural bacterial flora which can cause illness in a chin (or any mammal for that matter!). Dogs can carry and transmit bordatella although I would assume most people's dogs are vaccinated and not going to be exposed to other dogs with bordatella. Those are the only illnesses I can think of offhand.

Personally, my chin room is for my chins ONLY. No other species is allowed in there... not my dogs, not my parrot. If I had a cat, I definitely would not let a cat anywhere near my chins.
 
My dog does go into the chinchilla room with me...or lays in the door way anyway...I don't let them interact. The Cats will also wander in if I am in there with the door open but they also usually just sit in the door way.
 
How does everyone feel about letting various humans come in and visit the chins? Humans obviously carry with them their own assortment of germs. Do you let friends and relatives handle the chins?

For those who sell/adopt chins, do you allow those considering purchasing/adopting to go into the chin room? Does anyone have them use disinfectant before handling the chins -- especially if they're considering different animals and are handling those in different cages?

Linda
 
Humans do not carry a ton of zoonotic diseases. We can get some zoonotic diseases but it's not common for us to pass on our germs to animals. If it was that common...my dogs, cats and chins would have a respiratory infection every time I got a cold. I've sneezed, coughed, drooled and whatever else you can think of on my chins, cats and dogs when I'm sick. Eight years of owning chins and they have never contracted an illness from me.

I may have someone use a bit of sanitizer if they make ME feel icky, but generally I do not have people wash up before touching chins or have a blood test done. You can pet my chins but I don't let people kiss my chins or do something that could transfer fluids.

It's good to be careful but I am leery of buying a chinchilla for breeding without seeing the facilities they are kept in or at least getting an invitation to see the facilities. To me that implies that there is something to hide.
 
Hand sanitizer is usually the extent of what I will do to clean up people. I ask if they have other pets and if anyone is sick - I worry most about people with strep throat or maybe other bacterial problems. Now, if the people have feces on their shoes, I'd probably make them take the shoes off before coming in the house...but that's never happened. The vast majority of people coming into my house are just normal people looking for pets...they probably aren't carrying anything contagious to the chins. I worry so much more about them bringing other chins into my house. No one can bring in a chin just because they want to see if it gets along with another chin before they adopt one...that just doesn't happen here.
 
When I only had a few chins, I also kept rats in the same room with no problem. During that time we had an outbreak of SDA (Sialodacryoadentitis Virus) and strep pneumonia in the rat population and it did not affect the chins at all. I contacted numerous vets and nothing could be found that was zoonotic between the rats and the chins. On a side note, the rats that were in the chin room were actually hit less hard by the outbreak than the rats in the other rooms.
 
I let people in. They con touch the chinchillas. Granted it is not a petting zoo and I make that clear but So very few illnesses can be transmitted. If I don't feel comfortable with people coming to my home I do not sell to them, If I don't feel comfortable once they are there I ask them to leave.
 
menagerie said:
When I only had a few chins, I also kept rats in the same room with no problem. During that time we had an outbreak of SDA (Sialodacryoadentitis Virus) and strep pneumonia in the rat population and it did not affect the chins at all. I contacted numerous vets and nothing could be found that was zoonotic between the rats and the chins. On a side note, the rats that were in the chin room were actually hit less hard by the outbreak than the rats in the other rooms.
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This has been my experience with rodent species, but I'm still fairly new to chins. Even among the different hamster species, there are diseases specific to one species that will not affect the other hamster species. And the diseases in rats like SDA don't affect any of the hamster species.

It has been interesting to read the posts. Tabitha's have been perhaps the most interesting, and I am not trying to be critical. It's just an observation. She recommends against keeping other rodents in a chin room not because of any specific reason but apparently as a preventive measure against the unknown. If I'm reading it right, she appears to hold the opposite view with people. If you try to keep a person out, it implies you're hiding something instead of preventing possible disease transfer to the chins.

My own experience has been the opposite. I have not seen transfer between animals of different breeds/species in my care or between me and my animals. We do have an issue with hamsters, though. Many stop at a pet store on the way to our house to purchase the hamster. The hamster comes with a starter kit of food and bedding, but they purchase cages or various other supplies, and some even play with animals in the pet store while they're there. There are a couple of nasty diseases that are common in pet store animals, and I don't want them transferred to my animals. It would invariably lead to many deaths. Thus, I don't really want them in my house and definitely don't want them in the room with the animals especially when there are pups. So to me, humans are a much higher risk than other animals under may care.

Just different backgrounds and different experiences. Perhaps those buying chins don't often stop at pet stores on the way (and there is both a Petco and a Petsmart within a mile of my house). And I haven't heard of serious contagious diseases in pet store chins that would be transferred.

Linda
 
When you have had a chin die a horrible death from a zoonotic disease it makes you think everyone has cooties. I have people use the hand sanitizer every time they are being petted, and no more actual holding is being done.
 
Yeah i feel like anytime you have animals going near one another just be more attentive to their energy levels, eating, pooping, drinking, etc to catch anything that might be upsetting them right away. I have always quarantined each animal before going next to the others despite their type and it has worked so far. I have a big living room with my chins on one side, bunnies on the other, and the dog is up and about the room when we are home with him. It has been fine

Obviously, my experience doesnt mean all experiences will be the same way
 
i have dogs, cats, and used to have pet geese and i never let them interact with each other my dogs and cats will try and sneak in the room while i am in there with them but they have their own space and it is not in, on, over, under, or near the cages they know this and know they will be kicked out in an instance if they cross their "line"

on another note years and years ago back in my less knowledgable more foolish times raising a single chin i had the rabbit and chin in the same cage. it was a mini rabbit and a mini chin and they did great together. i knew the rabbit from birth and they were the only two pets so i saw no harm in it. my rabbit ate raisins and the chin ate greens but they were best of friends and died within days of each other as a natural age death. again this was about 15 years ago that i did this and i have learned so much more since then.

i have not had people in dealing with my chins except the people that are around on a regular basis and regardless me and everyone else is required to wash hands before even thinking of touching, feeding, or even going near my chins but im sure there was hard learning involved there. that and wonderful advice from great people.
 
ticklechin said:
When you have had a chin die a horrible death from a zoonotic disease it makes you think everyone has cooties. I have people use the hand sanitizer every time they are being petted, and no more actual holding is being done.
Click to expand...

Would you be willing to share what disease was spread to your chin and by what animal (or if it was people)?

Linda
 
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