Acclimating two chinchillas
Yesterday I finally decided to try to move my two chins who’ve been living separately into the same cage. I took everything out and thoroughly washed the tiles and furniture to remove any territory markings and other scents. I’ve had one of my chins for almost a year now (Jay) and had one for about 3 months (Q), Jay is probably almost 1.5 years old and Q is almost 8 months. When I first got the younger one they were kept in separate cages, with the hope they would eventually be able to get along and live in one together. When I would take them out together in the bathroom or any other neutral area, they seemed to always want to pounce on each other, not necessarily in a violent way, not biting or scratching just trying to dominate the other to show who’s boss. At first I thought they were fighting so I would seperate them and try again at a later time, until I realized that’s part of the “chinchilla diplomatic process” of their hierarchy. So once I moved these two into one cage together, they of course had their little dominance exchange, but have quickly become very comfortable with each other. They’re not fighting at all, at times grooming each other and being very friendly, and other times still bouncing around and a bit of pouncing on each other. But all in all they seem to be getting along very well, and I was very pleased to see how much easier this process was than it could’ve been. I was worried I’d be stuck with separate cages their whole lives, which is just twice as many cages to clean. Curious if you guys have had similar experiences with trying to acclimate chins together, or if it ended up quite the opposite. Thanks for reading! P.s. the boys say hello