Howdy all,
I was a member of Chins 'n Quills way back in .... 2007? Then Chins-n-Hedges (obvs) somewhere around 2009. I became fairly inactive as time went on, and haven't really participated here in years.
Well, I'm back - perhaps temporarily - in hopes of some advice. But I'll start a thread on that later.
To recap the last ~decade or so, my chinchilla journey began my junior year of high school near Tacoma, WA. I adopted my first chinchillas Nibbler and Brock from a craigslist posting where they were originally being fed Kaytee mix and chocolate chip teddy grahams. The uninformed owners had them sharing a temporary small folding cage and was under the impression they were both female. Come to find they were both male standards, preferred to live separately, and were somewhere around 3 years old.
After some rough lessons about reintroductions and housing stress just a couple of years later, Nibbler passed away following an abscessed bite wound inflicted while they were relegated to temporary cages during renovations to my home.
Not long after this, I adopted another sweet standard boy from Craigslist who came from a well informed home with a lovely cage set up and a healthy diet. His name was Muad'Dib and he was the most playful and young of my new pair, at only 18mo.
Muad'Dib and Brock kept me company through the final three years of my undergraduate degree, then gained a bonded pair that I adopted from a breeder/rescuer in my area. They were a beige named Riley and an ebony named Liam who had been reluctantly surrendered by an owner who took particularly stellar care of them for the whole ~2yrs of their lives thus far.
I moved to Portland, OR in 2011 for graduate school and all four boys made the move with me. Initial housing challenges presented some nervewracking situations and health issues for each of them, but ultimately we ended up in a great apartment with my two cats and eventually my boyfriend as well.
Sadly, Riley passed away suddenly of a respiratory infection just a few months after we got situated in the new apartment, and only a week before my first classes as a graduate student began. It was horribly heart breaking, not only for me but for his long time cage mate Liam as well.
Life went on, including the loss of my dear kitty Lucky at the respectable feline age of 13 whom I'd had since she was abandoned at 6wks old, and eventually I left the life of a full time student to join the work force and begin adulting.
I bought my first home in early 2014, repurposing the walk-in pantry as a small chinchilla room complete with the boys' FN 142+143 and private AC. The situation was pretty ideal, but the stress of the move (both ours, and that of the friends who moved in with us) was too much for sweet Muad'Dib who fell ill and died within the first month of being in the new house.
This left Brock and Liam, both coming to me with cage mates originally and both now alone (for after Brock effectively murdered Nibbler, I wasn't going to entertain giving him another cage mate), in the top and bottom sections of our three-tier cage. To this day, Dib's section in the middle remains blocked off and used for storage rather than play space because I miss him and feel guilty for basically literally stressing him to death.
So here we are, 2016, nearly ten years later. Brock is something like 12 years old, Liam closer to 10. I've had my ferret nation for most of those years, and mainly came back to the forum to figure out what my next steps should be.
We are renovating my basement, so there will be more space down there soon. My original plan was to buy a new FN141 and move the FN143 portion from my existing FN142, giving me two separate 2-tier cages. Give the boys a little extra room to roam in their golden years. But come to find, in my years of cage complacency, that the 140-series cages are no longer made. This also means I cannot get replacement parts for my existing cage, which could use some repairs.
Anyway, here I am. Me and my senior menagerie (10 and 12 y/o chinchillas, an 18 y/o cat, and an 11 y/o black lab).
I was a member of Chins 'n Quills way back in .... 2007? Then Chins-n-Hedges (obvs) somewhere around 2009. I became fairly inactive as time went on, and haven't really participated here in years.
Well, I'm back - perhaps temporarily - in hopes of some advice. But I'll start a thread on that later.
To recap the last ~decade or so, my chinchilla journey began my junior year of high school near Tacoma, WA. I adopted my first chinchillas Nibbler and Brock from a craigslist posting where they were originally being fed Kaytee mix and chocolate chip teddy grahams. The uninformed owners had them sharing a temporary small folding cage and was under the impression they were both female. Come to find they were both male standards, preferred to live separately, and were somewhere around 3 years old.
After some rough lessons about reintroductions and housing stress just a couple of years later, Nibbler passed away following an abscessed bite wound inflicted while they were relegated to temporary cages during renovations to my home.
Not long after this, I adopted another sweet standard boy from Craigslist who came from a well informed home with a lovely cage set up and a healthy diet. His name was Muad'Dib and he was the most playful and young of my new pair, at only 18mo.
Muad'Dib and Brock kept me company through the final three years of my undergraduate degree, then gained a bonded pair that I adopted from a breeder/rescuer in my area. They were a beige named Riley and an ebony named Liam who had been reluctantly surrendered by an owner who took particularly stellar care of them for the whole ~2yrs of their lives thus far.
I moved to Portland, OR in 2011 for graduate school and all four boys made the move with me. Initial housing challenges presented some nervewracking situations and health issues for each of them, but ultimately we ended up in a great apartment with my two cats and eventually my boyfriend as well.
Sadly, Riley passed away suddenly of a respiratory infection just a few months after we got situated in the new apartment, and only a week before my first classes as a graduate student began. It was horribly heart breaking, not only for me but for his long time cage mate Liam as well.
Life went on, including the loss of my dear kitty Lucky at the respectable feline age of 13 whom I'd had since she was abandoned at 6wks old, and eventually I left the life of a full time student to join the work force and begin adulting.
I bought my first home in early 2014, repurposing the walk-in pantry as a small chinchilla room complete with the boys' FN 142+143 and private AC. The situation was pretty ideal, but the stress of the move (both ours, and that of the friends who moved in with us) was too much for sweet Muad'Dib who fell ill and died within the first month of being in the new house.
This left Brock and Liam, both coming to me with cage mates originally and both now alone (for after Brock effectively murdered Nibbler, I wasn't going to entertain giving him another cage mate), in the top and bottom sections of our three-tier cage. To this day, Dib's section in the middle remains blocked off and used for storage rather than play space because I miss him and feel guilty for basically literally stressing him to death.
So here we are, 2016, nearly ten years later. Brock is something like 12 years old, Liam closer to 10. I've had my ferret nation for most of those years, and mainly came back to the forum to figure out what my next steps should be.
We are renovating my basement, so there will be more space down there soon. My original plan was to buy a new FN141 and move the FN143 portion from my existing FN142, giving me two separate 2-tier cages. Give the boys a little extra room to roam in their golden years. But come to find, in my years of cage complacency, that the 140-series cages are no longer made. This also means I cannot get replacement parts for my existing cage, which could use some repairs.
Anyway, here I am. Me and my senior menagerie (10 and 12 y/o chinchillas, an 18 y/o cat, and an 11 y/o black lab).
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