What was your chin's previous owner like?

[sheilaandroses]

I find these stories quite interesting, especially the rescue ones.

My chinchilla's owner was a girl who went to my school. I was telling her about how sad I was about my old hamster (my sister lost him on my birthday while I was at a friends house, he was never found) and she says "Oh, I'm sorry, do you want a chinchilla?" Lol, I didn't know anything about chinchillas, and didn't even know what they looked like. I did tons of research, and even joined this website (I was sheilabeilabobo, but I forgot my password so now I'm sheilaandroses), until I finally believed I knew almost everything. She was offering him (by the way, he's 3) and his cage for 60$, which was incredibly cheap. I went to go pick him up, and she seemed to be more concerned than some other stories I've heard. She printed out information on chinchillas (stuff I already knew), and what woods were safe to give them. She gave me a bag of raisins and said they can only have three a week, but I don't feed my chinchilla raisins, I've heard it's unsafe. She gave me a "death ball", a bag of chinchilla food with all the "extra" stuff in it, and a jar of dust bath. I then got to see the chinchilla, and couldn't believe how cute he was, and the fact he was much smaller than I expected a chinchilla to be (although I think he's actually big for a chin). The cage is about the size of a FN141 (not 142), and I thought that was a pretty good size for him. She had his plastic dust bath in the cage as a hide house for him, a ceramic bowl, wooden shelves, a small toy, and a water bottle. We took him home.

By the way, the whole time I was writing this, Kodah (my chin) was burrowing into my bar and coming out my sleeve. What on Earth?

 

[Akunaferret]

Well, for Flynn, my standard boy, I got him from a good friend of mine. Friend A was doing a lot of remodeling and moving things around so Flynn was living in the bath tub in his cage. A wanted a better life for him, and logged onto facebook to ask if anyone wanted a free chinchilla, this included cage, bedding, food, hay, broken wheel (one of those plastic ones that are a no no), treats that he had left, dust bath and dust. I had just moved in with my fiancee and I had nothing to do except look for a job and sit at home, so I asked if it would be ok and he said he didn't mind at all. So I told my friend that if everything was free, I'll pay for the gas for the hour drive it took to get the chin to me. It was a small "My first home" with plastic shelves that I didn't know where bad for him and the feed was fiesta mix and the bedding looked like shredded toilet paper tubes. Shortly after getting him, I found this place and managed to get him good food, removed the shelves and better bedding from RDZ, which brings us to Quill.

Quill is my beige boy that I got a month after owning Flynn from RDZ, who helped me introduce the two boys, as well as took me to Home Depot to get wooden shelves to fit into the cage. After she left, and I showed my fiancee, he said he could've sword it was a different cage, it looked a lot roomier. I got Flynn in September of 2010 and Quill in October 2010. That December I bought them a Feisty ferret cage which is just perfect for them.

sorry for the long winded post

 

[sheltiefan]

Chi-chi is my first and only chin. I got her off craigslist. I had wanted a chinchilla for a LONG time and done TONS of reseach. Finally I found her on Craigslist for 100 cage and extras. She came with a ferret cage that is purple and green ledges and slides, Food with TONS of treats in them a huge box of raisins, death ball, And a canvas carrier and cheap dust, and a hammock she had chewed alot of it up. But worse thing about it was her living conditions. He had hay as her bedding. He said he changed her cage about 1time every 2 or 3 months. That hay that was her bedding was also her hay she was suppose to eat. YUCK
Now I won't say i changed everything at first I was still a new owner. But I have changed out all the plastic shelves for wooden ones, Threw away the death ball, Changed her food to a better quality, She now has tons of chew toys ( she had none when she came to us ) And her cage gets cleaned once a week. I just noticed she is chewing on the base of her cage. So I made a fleece cover to go around the base so she wont chew it. She seems ALOT happier.

 

[Carleigh]

I had wanted a chinchilla for years before I got my first two. After hearing my mom say no many times, one day, just before my birthday, she mentioned that she saw an ad on Craigslist for two chinchillas. The lady was an army wife and they were moving across the country and she didn't want them to have to endure the stress of moving so far. I was so ecstatic and we picked them up the next day. For 2 chinchillas the cage was rather small, wouldn't have been bad for one though. There were also no shelves, but their owner let them play out of the cage all the time. I was given the remainder of their hay, bedding, dust, and food (kaytee without treats!,) their plastic igloo house, a plastic bath house, a flying saucer, their cage, and another large, wooden cage that her husband had built for them--all for $100. Azumi died a couple of years later, but E is still my baby boy.

 

[Encantadora]

My first chin was from a pet store. I had done my own research and there were not many Chins in the area I was living. And no breeders.

The workers said she wasn't very friendly and would "box" at them when they cleaned up the cage or touched her.

I was able to scratch her after some barking and won her trust after a long time. She became the sweetest chin I'd ever met. Shed lay on her back in my arms and look at herself in the mirror. She barked at me for attention and would run to the top of the cage to be scratched when I came near.

 

[Chub_Chub]

Bowie was my first chin, he came from a CL ad.. His previous owner had a "dancers pole" in the living room.. right in the middle. She said she was giving him up because she didn't have time for him, working nights and going to school. She used to feed him granola bits, nuts and raisins from a Bear Naked trail mix bag near his cage for treats. His plastic bath house lived in the cage. She said she used to let him out at night and go to sleep while he roamed around her bedroom. She would wake up and find him in her sock drawer (aww its so cute, she says). :banghead:

We used to joke that she got rid of him after he found her dollar bill stash and tore it up one night while roaming and playing.

My second chin, Ziggy, also a CL rescue, came from a house with 3 dogs and a cat. The previous owners would put him in a death ball for hours (he loves it! they said) and the dogs would jump on the death ball, trying to get at him. I can only imagine how much stress he was under in this house. His cage was absolutely barren of toys. It was one of those superpet-type cages that had plastic ramps in it, it also had a GINORMOUS hole chewed out of the bottom corner of the plastic pan. Which they patched with self drilling screws (read: pointy bits) and a metal plate of some kind. No wonder the little guy was chewing his fur severely when we got him. That cage was given away for free on CL as soon as quarantine was over because then we bought our first FN.

Edited to add, my last 3 chins all came from a rescue/breeder, so they were very well cared for and are now completely spoiled even more!

 

[rainey]

I got Snoops 2 years ago when I was on facebook and saw that one of my friends from work needed to give him away. He said that he was just too busy with his 2 dogs to properly care for him. Also, he had found Snoops the previous year when he was taking out the trash, and there was Snoops in a tiny cage right next to the dumpster! So he took him in, got him a new (rabbit) cage, and gave him to me a year later.

About a year after that, I got my second chin, Scoops, from a pet store. I got her because I thought that Snoops was lonely, and when I asked the pet shop owner about their male chins, he said it was a terrible idea to try to pair 2 males, that they would just kill eachother, so he recommended a female. I said well what about babies? And he said that since she was a Mosaic and Snoops was a standard, it was doubtful that they'd mate. REALLY??? I was so naive and stupid I believed this...... Well she died 3 months later, I think from impaction, and it was the day that I realized she was sick that I found this forum.

I now have 3 more, healthy and well-loved chins

 

[chinsNdobermans]

While my first two chins were from pet stores, my third and fourth were from a biology classroom at my high school (wow, it seems like forever since then!). My teacher had a mother and son, caged together. When she heard that I had two of my own, she asked if I'd be interested in taking her's.

The poor things were caged in a cage not much larger than a couple of show cages, side by side and end to end. They actually got food free of treats, which I thought amazing, but had no ledges, and were on a wire floor. I still have the cage, and I use it to house sick chins, but it is not appropriate for any other use than that and introductions. But I know that the teacher did not know any better, and she did not do research.

I still have the mother chin from that pair, Ellie. She is the last remaining of my original four.