illowfight:I've been the human slave of Barnaby, a five year old chinchilla, for 6 months.
I was concerned that he was lonely or just bored so I decided to get another chinchilla. Also, I am now hopelessly in love wtih chinchillas. I figured even if he totally hated on the other chinchilla, it would give him something to do.
Hugo joined us just 10 days ago. He is 6 months old. He has his own cage.
They've been out together three times. The first time, Barnaby was like a little guided missel and would launch himslelf into Hugo who would then leap around like a crazed kangaroo. Fortunately, he is much faster than his new fat friend. This seemed pretty darn aggressive, so I thumped on the ground or growled 'Barnaby' when I could tell he was going into attack mode. This would interupt his 'moment' and he would stand there on his hind legs staring at me in all innocence. At one point, I did scoop him up for some forced cuddling in hopes of calming him down.
These last two times, there has been chasing but nothing that appears as aggressive as that first time. No one has been bitten. There is a lot more nose sniffing. Sometimes, Barnaby has been out and Hugo is in his cage and they spend a lot of time gingerly touching noses through the bars. During mutual play time, Barnaby still chases Hugo but not nearly as intensely as before. They can be sitting near each other without any aggression.
So: How much chasing do I tolerate? Also, it appears that Barnaby would like to mount Hugo. I totally want to discourage this, but should I? Is it a normal way of establishing dominance? The goal is to eventually have them play out of their cages together with out any aggressive, potentially dangerous, or embarrasing behaviors. Of course, it would be WONDERFUL if I could eventually trust them to live together peacefully in the same cage.
ALSO: As a baby, Barnaby was beat up a lot by his two chin cage mates.
His former slave is concerned that this has scared him for life and doesn't think I should have gotten another chin. Lulilac
