Do Chinchillas Kill Each Other?
Sometimes things don't go well for chinchilla owners. Such was the case when we heard from Jennifer.
Does anyone know if it's common for chinchillas to kill each other or act violently towards each other? I don't know if my chin killed the other one, but we came home and found the female dead. The might be killer was her baby (a 1 year old male). They have acted violently before and if I had known it was going to go this far, I would have separated them. Stupid, stupid me already knew I was supposed to. I feel horrible about it.
I'm also wondering if maybe they were chasing each other and she hit her head. I really don't think so though because I saw that there was a spot by her nose where she was injured (like he possibly bit her) or maybe he was just trying to groom her after she passed away. I only had 2 at the most together in one cage (only mom and baby because they seemed to get along, the other was new because he was given to us out of nowhere.
I tried combining different ones to see if they might get along but they always attacked each other. I really regret having them together that long, I knew I should not have and now the sweetest one had to pay:( I also think her baby has something wrong with him because he's still smaller than most chinchillas and he's fat. He also has smaller eyes. If anyone knows any answers to my questions please let me know. Thanks lots 🙂
We unfortunately didn't have much to tell Jennifer. Her experience was outside of what we've ever dealt with.
Jennifer,
We're sorry to hear about your chinchilla. We've never seen or even heard of that level of violence.
Many, many years ago I had pet hamsters that had a bunch of babies. I didn't separate them soon enough and they started to kill each other. It's a sad thing and acts as a reminder that we need to listen to our gut feelings and take action to prevent such situations from happening.
(4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
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Hello, i first had two chinchillas, male and female (Stella) and (Brandon), they had a female baby (Stormi), Stella had one more baby boy (Billy), Stormi had 3 first babys all female, then Stella had one more male baby named (Benny), and now Stormi has 3 more babys who have 2 days.
I have one cage where there were brendon stella and stormy with Billy, Brandon wanted to kill Billy because he wanted to mate with Stella, and then they stopped fighting. My friend gave me a new cage where i seperated males in one cage and females in other. Everything was going so well till Brandon was sad because he missed Stella and Stormi, then i put them all in one room and they were all happy till i found so much fur on the floor, I didnt knew from whi it was and who did it, I saw Brandon chasing every single chin, i thought for mating but, he was agressively mating and fighting, i tried to seperate them again but Brandon almost killed Billy and female chins hate eachother now, can someone help me please, cause i am so stressed and dont have any clue, im 14
We recently bought a new young female just 1 year old and added to our crew of 4 - mom(shellie), dad(Picachu), son(marty) and daughter(lisa)......sone and daughter also 1 year old. Mom just had new babies(misha and masha) and she is in separate cage with little ones for a while. We introduced new female to 3 our chins in the large cage.....both father and son was good with her, but Lisa started to attack new female, they had big fight and got separated Lisa in a different cage leaving new female in the cage with 2 males.....son Marty is not interested in her at all, but dad Picachu trying to mate with her right away......poor thing, she lost a lot of hair, has few bite marks from fight with Lisa, this morning found more hair in the cage, probably Picachu tried to mate again last night. Separated new female and brought back lisa. Not sure what to do now. Put new female in separate cage close to mama Shellie and babies, maybe she will get more used to a new smell and will not be aggressive as Lisa is. Looking for some advice what to do with our chins.
I have (had) eight chinchillas. They all lived in the same cage and about two days ago I found one incredibly skinny and missing his tail end of all of his fur. Yesterdat I found him dead and trampled in the bottom of the cage. Today I found anotjet one, dead the same way. Can someone please tellvme why this is happening ! Email me @taylorrae588@yahoo.com
Personally I don't believe in putting my chins all the the same cages as they are territorial..especially multiple males with a female or females visa versa
In the wild they have more area
But tame ones cannot be compared
I have in cage one one female
Cage two a couple
Cage three daddy and son
Had no fighting issues try keep them a meter apart
But let them play together supervised in a pen pen :)
Sorry for your loss
I bought 2 chins snowflake(boy) sassy(girl) at first they squared off with snow being the aggressor but then i let them run around in the open for 2 hrs and the next moment they are huddled together sleeping(and snowflake is a pushover) sassy rules the cage. Well 4 months later they had a baby boy smokey. Snow and sassy were great parents. And smokey has traits of both. 4 months later and i saw smokey trying to mount his mom sassy well she immediately stopped that. But its time for a new cage for smokey so i bought a cage plus a month older female(hope) . We tried to get them all together in a open space but all hell broke loose sassy attacked her viciously. So i put sassy back in her cage, hope loved snowflake who is a casanova pacifist but didnt like smokey too much but wasnt that bad. In the long run smokey and hope are love birds in their own cage , sassy and snowflake are doing good but sassy wants to still kill hope , i think she is pregnant again too and maybe she sees hope as a danger to her unborn kits.
My personal opinion is never put x2 of one sex with 1x of another xD they will battle
Same sex is better and two max per cage :) gives them enough space to have together time or alone time
Chins are very temperamental ?
When we first bought our chinchilla Shadow, he was lonely so we went back to the store and bought the only other one they had (a rescue: Pikachu). They were best friends from the start and have never had any problems with them. Then a few months later we bought another one that was only a few weeks old, Kiwi. Pikachu didn't like Kiwi at all, but Shadow would always defend him. After they all got used to each other, they were fine for about a year or 2 until Kiwi grew up. Then he started dominating on Shadow and would chase him outside and inside the cage. He freaked Shadow out so much Shadow would jump over the gate and hide under the couch. Kiwi got more violent and once bit my arm while chasing Shadow around thinking it was Shadow. A few days later, we woke up to Shadow having a bloody bite mark on his neck, so we immediately separated them. He recovered from it and lived for many more years until he passed away a year ago, but since we separated them, Pikachu and Kiwi have never gotten along. When I take them out one at a time to play outside the cage, Pikachu will constantly be trying to get into Kiwi's cage to fight with him. I'm sad they were able to get along in the beginning and can't now. I don't think there's anything we can do to change their feelings toward each other.
some chinchillas have been known to fight til death.
Im so glad to have read the above information. My male and female chinchillas get along so beuatifully. Wehn I lost Scooter, their son, Violet had already had another kit. I dont know if Pepper is male or female. Scooter had to be put down because he appartently ingested something that caused an obstruction in his digestive track. Thats what my exotic vet said. So, Scooter was not killed by his father. They all got along so well. They were a cozy family, although Scooter would try to mate with his mother, Violet. but, the father never became violent towards Scooter. Unfortunately, he ingested something that made him sick. i had to have him put down. Anyway, Im glad that I read where I will need to be careful with Pepper if he is a male, to prevent him and the father from killing one another because of mating issues. I will make sure that i dont lose another chinchilla through ignorance or neglectful actions....
Although rare, it has been known for chinchillas to fight to the death. Usually this happens in the wild, though. I hadn't realized before that even with family bonds, aggressiveness could display itself. However, if there isn't that, "instant connection", you need to go through the steps to actually hand-bond them. And it is also bad to keep different-sex family pairs together, because that will cause inbreeding which causes health problems in any babies. Sorry about your loss! :(
So sorry for Jennifer's poor little chin,but anytime you introduce a new chinchilla it should be done by putting the two cages side by side so they can show you if they will like each other or if it's just not a match.This process takes about 2-4 weeks, you'll know if they like each other cause they will try to cuddle together through the cages. Always keep in mind that you may want certain chinchillas to pair up, but in final the choice is the chins. Unfortunately males will fight to the death, and some females don't want other females near them. I breed 2-3 females per male,but the choices still rely on the chins. But you should never leave a baby chinchilla with it's mom after the age of 6 weeks, always seperate the different sexes as well,the males will try to breed with it's mom and it's sisters.Even in most cases the male babies will kill if he wants to breed and the other chinchilla doesnt want. Male chinchillas do not care if the other is related to it or not, if they want to breed they will always kill if the female does not breed. In all cases related chinchilla should be seperated.;
try to avoid getting two males and onefemale. but ferther more they most likely wont kill each other.
I feel so bad for Jennifer.That's horrible that that happened,but she needs to forgive herself and now she knows to make sure it doesn't happen again and that poor little chinchilla is at peace.I can offer nothing about breeding or new born chins,but I have a lot to say about aggressive chins.I have 2 chins.We got Bella first.Had her a little over a yr then got Spritie b/c we thought Bella was lonely.We were told she was a boy then found out she was a girl.We were then told 2 females would work perfectly.Common sense should have told me otherwise.I call Spritie my diva cat b/c she has the run of the house.Bella chews too much and will bite sometimes so we let her run in her ball-she loves it!Unfortunately the top has popped off a few times and when the two come in contact the hair is flying.The first time I saw it I almost had a heart attack,they looked liked dogs fighting-up on hind legs.I just reached for the base of one of thier tails(prayed it was Spritie)and lifted.I believe in my heart of hearts that if I left them that they would kill eachother.It's sad that they can't be together.
a one year old male chinchilla should not be kept with it's mother they will breed or in your case fight and that causes problems. male and female kits should be separated by 12 weeks in age.
Bryan,
Recently born baby chinchillas won't fight until they're a little older. You should remove the male from the cage though.
Our chinchilla just had her babies last night. We are wondering if the babies normally fight or if that is just them playing?
I, too, and experiencing, an aggressive chinchilla baby. My chinchilla just had a litter of 2 and the bigger one appears to be attacking the smaller one. I have never seen this before. They are only 5 days old. Advice?
my baby chinchillas were fighting for milk of their mother and when they were in the age of not needing the care of their mother, they were apsolutely normal. I dont know if its same for every baby fight, but my advice is, that just leave them do things on their own. Hope that helps.
Baby chinchillas of "Kits" are suppose to be removed from the parents cage and in their own cage with same sex pairs at the age of 8 to 10 weeks old. Males should not be kept with their mothers after that age.
You do not separate mother from kit until fully weaned. Separate the father, move kits and mother into smaller cage to give youre kits the safest environment.