With a little luck and a little dust, success can be yours
Chinchillas are wonderful, fun balls of fur and exploration.
They love to explore and chew and romp.
While they have a strong sense of community, they do not accept sudden introductions well and are very distrustful of the “new kid”.
If planning to add a chinchilla to an already existing community, it is important for the introduction go well and with a minimum of fighting.
The simplest way to accomplish an easy introduction is to get the new chinchilla to smell exactly like the already established chinchillas.
First, give the existing chinchilla community its dust bin. Allow them to bathe in their dust for at least a few hours. I allowed a few days of time to make sure the dust was very strong with their scent. It is advisable to put an extra amount of dust in the bin so there will still be enough for the next step.
Next, give the new chinchilla access to the dust. Do not do this in the established community cage, but rather by itself in a separate area. Give it a good opportunity to really spin in the used dust and be thoroughly coated.
Finally, keep the used dust in the bin, adding more if necessary. Add the bin to the community cage. Put the new chinchilla in an area of the cage where the other chinchillas are not.
It is important to remain and watch to ensure there is no fighting and the introduction is successful. The bonus is that it is a great deal of fun watching them learn to play together.
What happened for us was that the established chinchillas ran over and past the new one to get to their dust bath. Since they touched the new one as they ran past, it helped to further add their scent to her. Plus, the dust in the bin now had a combination of their scent and hers.
By the time the established chinchillas realized there was one more of them than there had been, she already smelled like them and fit right in.
We could tell the minute they realized there was a new chinchilla because they ran over to her and started energetically sniffing her. When she smelled familiar to them, you could almost see the tiny shrugs as they turned and went on about their business of running through the levels of their cage.
There never was a fight or problem. The new addition melted into the community as if she had been a part of it from the beginning.
We have found that chinchillas thrive when there is more than one of them in a cage. The reward for the owner is endless entertainment as the chins play leap frog, tug of war, and chase. They snuggle together and talk to each other, and occasionally bawl each other out over who should get to be first in the fresh dust bath bin. Sometimes they even play totem pole and stack on top of each other to sleep!
They also seem to be highly competitive.
When the running wheel was introduced to the cage, the youngest chinchilla took to it very quickly and could run at top speed. The oldest chinchilla would watch her, then get in the wheel and try to run, often tripping and falling out of the wheel. Then she’d watch the other chinchillas run and when they were done, she’d get back on the wheel and try again. She finally did learn how to run on it. Now they take turns, sometimes bumping each other off, each trying to run faster than the one that was on the wheel before her.
Now all three of the little rascals line up in a row for their nightly raisins, bumping and shoving in a sight that is so very comical!
