Separate?

[steph624]

I'm wondering if I should separate a pair of boys that I adopted a little more than a month ago. I got them from a local shelter where they had been brought by a family that bought them for their kids, and they obviously found out that there was a lot more to caring for them than they thought. There was little background information on them, other than that they are around six and they have lived with a few different families. I have no idea if they have always been cage mates or not, but I have been noticing that MuShu is very dominant and that the other one, Totoro, seems scared of him sometimes. Totoro has tufts of fur that have been coming out for the past few days and it worries me. Also, for about half an hour this morning and around the time amount of time tonight he has been making what sounds like the barking that I heard in the sound clip on the chinchilla sounds page over and over. MuShu isn't near him when this happens.

Could it be the stress that MuShu is causing him? They seemed to be okay during quarantine, but now they are in my room and my other chin who is a female is also in here in a different cage across the room. MuShu has been going kind of nuts today and yesterday and I hear a lot of spats going on between both of them, but there haven't been any injuries. I have them in a two level Ferret Nation so I can separate them easily, it just makes me sad because they seemed so sweet with each other when they were first here. I do know that sometimes pairs just start fighting and there isn't anything that can be done.

I'm sorry that this is long, I just wanted to get enough information. I'm thinking that the answer from most people will be to separate them, I just wanted to see if there was anything that I could try. Thanks very much!

 

[Laurie]

Steph if your girl chin is in the same room as your boy chins and she is in heat, this could be causing strife between your two boy chins. I personally have never noticed this with my chins--I have males and females next to each other in cages and I've never noticed my males fighting or bickering if one of my females comes into heat, however I have heard of it happening.
I would monitor very closely your two boys to make sure there is not fierce fighting going on. Asserting dominance is a very common occurrence and you are going to have one who will be more dominant than the other.
You could try moving your boys' cage out of the room from where the girl is and see if that helps the bickering with your boys for the time being.

 

[Rickman]

Many have had this problem when a female is in the same room - it's the scent that causes hormones to react differently and sometimes violently! Males will kill for the female - I'd seperate the males, temporarily, until they get over the female and put her in another room!