Introducing Chinchillas Day 1
Today we purchase a pastel colored Chinchilla. He sort of looks like a pig so we named him piglet. Along with Roo, we now have a Winnie the Pooh matching pair... kinda. At first they were a bit grumpy, especially Piglet during the beginning phases of introduction. But now they seem to be more comfortable with one another. In fact, surprisingly they are staying in the same cage right now.
Basically after bringing piglet home, we let the chinchillas sniff each other from outside Roo's cage. This allows them to become more familiar with one another before the actual encounter without any sort of barrier between them. After about 10 minutes or so of Roo being extremely excited and Piglet being well... shy and docile we put them both into a newly purchased cage in which neither had been able to claim territory in. Also known as a neutral zone, this allows the chinchillas to be on even ground. At first they seemed to get along but Roo the at the moment dominant chin began mounting Piglet. This is normal and is a chinchillas way of showing dominance, the only thing is... Piglet wasn't having any of it. Fur began to fly and I had to split the two and put them in separate cages for an hour or so.
After a series of the same story we eventually decided to start once again from scratch. This time though, I decided to introduce the chinchillas while Julie held piglet and I held Roo. We put their noses together and then their butts. Next we put butt to nose in order for them to establish sex. Later we then put them into the guest bathroom bathtub which turned out to be an awesome decision. Though there were constant attempts at mounting and small fights, nothing serious actually came into fruition. We let them hang out for an hour or so and Roo actually began to groom Piglet. Julie got tired and so we brought them up stairs prepared to put them in separate cages until I decided hey lets just try to put them in the larger cage one last time. Now I am sitting here surprised out of my mind as my old Chinchilla and my new Chinchilla are sharing a cage together. There of course is some small amount of tension but overall great progress for the first day.
