I'm not sure this is an "emergency" per se, so I'm guessing this would be where I should post this to get some help.
I've recently caught my two boys fighting, and I'm trying to get some help to figure out the "why" behind it (and hopefully get them back to their chin piling).
I have owned my two chinchillas for about 4 months now. They are both 7 months old. Both are boys: one mosaic, the other black velvet. They are brothers, but from different mothers. They were born 3 days apart from each other. Their names are Kimahri and Yuzuki. Neither is neutered.
The night before last night, I stopped the two of them from fighting. I'm not sure why the fight started, but my husband and I suspect it may have been because I was in the room on the phone with a friend with an emergency at the time (it was 3 am, so I was trying to get to a quiet place to talk to her where I wouldn't be waking anyone up). The boys have their own room, so they are always at the right temperature, not bothered by excessive activity around them, etc, etc, and they have their own tv to watch at night from 5 pm until 10 am the next morning. When the tv is not on, they get classical music radio.
When I am in the room, I go in to clean their cage, give them food/water, have exercise time outside the cage, and just to generally give them attention (talking to them, letting them sit on my shoulders next to the cage for pettings). When I went into the room for the phone call, they both got excited and wanted attention, which they weren't immediately getting, because I was trying to help my friend with her emergency. So, the boys were running around the cage, not getting attention, getting excitable, and at that point, Kimahri attacked Yuzuki, and they became a tumbling ball of flying Yuzuki fur. I stopped the fight and immediately separated them from each other, giving one the bottom half of the cage, and one the top half (I have a multi-tier ferret nation that is taller than me, so they each got their own half of the cage for the night). Yuzuki was terrified and hid in a corner for the rest of the night and would not come out, but was not hurt. Kimahri ran around being irritable the remainder of the night into the next morning. The next morning, I took them out for outside cage time, and let them go out together, hoping the fight was just because they had run into each other while running about the cage vying for my attention. They played together fine, except that Kimahri kept taking away any toy that Yuzuki would pick up.
A couple days before this, Yuzuki had been having a couple small fur slip spots, but since I had not heard/caught them fighting, I assumed that maybe he was just shedding. He did not seem afraid of Kimahri (like he is now), and the only other MAYBE sign that they may have had a fight was that they did not seem to be sleeping together in their usual spot. I made a note of it, but tried not to worry about it...until now. Now I wonder if they may have been having small fights before the one I stopped.
Again, neither chin is hurt: but Yuzuki is clearly scared of Kimahri now, and avoids approaching an area he thinks Kimahri may be in. He does seem like he's emotionally hurting (depressed, confused, missing his bond with his brother, but too afraid to go near him now). Yuzuki barked very loudly at Kimahri when he tried to approach Yuzuki after the initial fight, when Yuzuki was hiding. After reintroducing them during play time, they did fine (outside of Kimahri stealing Yuzuki's toys), and Yuzuki did not bark at Kimahri. They were around each other fine in the cage, as far as I could tell. They were seemingly doing fine until just an hour ago: I was letting Yuzuki sit on my shoulder and get pettings, and he very suddenly flipped out and ran inside the cage and started darting all over it, and Kimahri - who had been sleeping up to this point - came out and attacked him again. They are now separated (again). Both are still unhurt, Yuzuki had another fur slip, and barked at Kimahri again.
We currently have a few suspicions of why they started fighting.
The leading suspicion is that it may have been the removal of one of their timothy grass bungalows from the cage (we took away a "toy", so now they feel the need to fight for the remaining toys). One of them peed in the bungalow, so I threw it out, fearing mold. After that was when Yuzuki's fur slip first showed up (before the initial fight I caught). The day I caught the initial fight, I noticed the other bungalow had been peed in in the same spot, so we cut out the bottom of the bungalow and put it back in it's normal location. That night was when I caught them fighting.
Our other suspicion is that they may have been fighting over attention from me, since neither was getting any while I was on the phone, and the next fight happened while I was giving Yuzuki attention. However, Kimahri was sleeping at the time (or trying to at least), not vying for attention like the first fight.
I also wonder if it may be that when Yuzuki is running around being excitable, if Kimahri may be getting irritated by it and lashing out at Yuzuki because he is being bothered by Yuzuki running around everywhere in the cage.
Help figuring this out would be greatly appreciated! I do not want my boys to fight, and I do not believe they want to fight. They have always been very close up until this point; inseparable, even. They slept together, ate together, played together, even took dust baths together...literally EVERYTHING together, always at the same time. The only thing they didn't do together was run on their chin-spin (which they still tried to do together, but found - much to their disappointment - that they cannot both fit on the wheel at the same time).
Under the suspicion that the fighting may have something to do with the removed bungalow, I am currently on my way to the store to pick up a new bungalow, and extras if they have any, in the hopes that replacing the missing bungalow will be a magical fix for their problems :/
Please help! I just want my boys to love each other unconditionally again :cry3:
Sorry if post is a bit long...I just want to make sure any detail that may be important is here to get this figured out ASAP
I've recently caught my two boys fighting, and I'm trying to get some help to figure out the "why" behind it (and hopefully get them back to their chin piling).
I have owned my two chinchillas for about 4 months now. They are both 7 months old. Both are boys: one mosaic, the other black velvet. They are brothers, but from different mothers. They were born 3 days apart from each other. Their names are Kimahri and Yuzuki. Neither is neutered.
The night before last night, I stopped the two of them from fighting. I'm not sure why the fight started, but my husband and I suspect it may have been because I was in the room on the phone with a friend with an emergency at the time (it was 3 am, so I was trying to get to a quiet place to talk to her where I wouldn't be waking anyone up). The boys have their own room, so they are always at the right temperature, not bothered by excessive activity around them, etc, etc, and they have their own tv to watch at night from 5 pm until 10 am the next morning. When the tv is not on, they get classical music radio.
When I am in the room, I go in to clean their cage, give them food/water, have exercise time outside the cage, and just to generally give them attention (talking to them, letting them sit on my shoulders next to the cage for pettings). When I went into the room for the phone call, they both got excited and wanted attention, which they weren't immediately getting, because I was trying to help my friend with her emergency. So, the boys were running around the cage, not getting attention, getting excitable, and at that point, Kimahri attacked Yuzuki, and they became a tumbling ball of flying Yuzuki fur. I stopped the fight and immediately separated them from each other, giving one the bottom half of the cage, and one the top half (I have a multi-tier ferret nation that is taller than me, so they each got their own half of the cage for the night). Yuzuki was terrified and hid in a corner for the rest of the night and would not come out, but was not hurt. Kimahri ran around being irritable the remainder of the night into the next morning. The next morning, I took them out for outside cage time, and let them go out together, hoping the fight was just because they had run into each other while running about the cage vying for my attention. They played together fine, except that Kimahri kept taking away any toy that Yuzuki would pick up.
A couple days before this, Yuzuki had been having a couple small fur slip spots, but since I had not heard/caught them fighting, I assumed that maybe he was just shedding. He did not seem afraid of Kimahri (like he is now), and the only other MAYBE sign that they may have had a fight was that they did not seem to be sleeping together in their usual spot. I made a note of it, but tried not to worry about it...until now. Now I wonder if they may have been having small fights before the one I stopped.
Again, neither chin is hurt: but Yuzuki is clearly scared of Kimahri now, and avoids approaching an area he thinks Kimahri may be in. He does seem like he's emotionally hurting (depressed, confused, missing his bond with his brother, but too afraid to go near him now). Yuzuki barked very loudly at Kimahri when he tried to approach Yuzuki after the initial fight, when Yuzuki was hiding. After reintroducing them during play time, they did fine (outside of Kimahri stealing Yuzuki's toys), and Yuzuki did not bark at Kimahri. They were around each other fine in the cage, as far as I could tell. They were seemingly doing fine until just an hour ago: I was letting Yuzuki sit on my shoulder and get pettings, and he very suddenly flipped out and ran inside the cage and started darting all over it, and Kimahri - who had been sleeping up to this point - came out and attacked him again. They are now separated (again). Both are still unhurt, Yuzuki had another fur slip, and barked at Kimahri again.
We currently have a few suspicions of why they started fighting.
The leading suspicion is that it may have been the removal of one of their timothy grass bungalows from the cage (we took away a "toy", so now they feel the need to fight for the remaining toys). One of them peed in the bungalow, so I threw it out, fearing mold. After that was when Yuzuki's fur slip first showed up (before the initial fight I caught). The day I caught the initial fight, I noticed the other bungalow had been peed in in the same spot, so we cut out the bottom of the bungalow and put it back in it's normal location. That night was when I caught them fighting.
Our other suspicion is that they may have been fighting over attention from me, since neither was getting any while I was on the phone, and the next fight happened while I was giving Yuzuki attention. However, Kimahri was sleeping at the time (or trying to at least), not vying for attention like the first fight.
I also wonder if it may be that when Yuzuki is running around being excitable, if Kimahri may be getting irritated by it and lashing out at Yuzuki because he is being bothered by Yuzuki running around everywhere in the cage.
Help figuring this out would be greatly appreciated! I do not want my boys to fight, and I do not believe they want to fight. They have always been very close up until this point; inseparable, even. They slept together, ate together, played together, even took dust baths together...literally EVERYTHING together, always at the same time. The only thing they didn't do together was run on their chin-spin (which they still tried to do together, but found - much to their disappointment - that they cannot both fit on the wheel at the same time).
Under the suspicion that the fighting may have something to do with the removed bungalow, I am currently on my way to the store to pick up a new bungalow, and extras if they have any, in the hopes that replacing the missing bungalow will be a magical fix for their problems :/
Please help! I just want my boys to love each other unconditionally again :cry3:
Sorry if post is a bit long...I just want to make sure any detail that may be important is here to get this figured out ASAP
