Need to rant!

As most of you probably know, I rescue as well as breed. About 2 weeks ago, I arranged to pick up 7 chins from a guy named Cody. When we arrived at his place it looked like it belonged on Hoarders. The place smelled horrible - my son said a combination of filth and crack house. I could not wait to get out of there. He had the chins in 2 small, filthy cages, supposedly separated by gender. When they went to fill out my paperwork, he could only remember the name of 1 chinchilla which he said is a 10 year old male named Doc. While we were there he started bragging about his operation. He told us that they got a few animals from breeders in the area (and started bad mouthing a couple of good breeders I know). The rest of his breeding animals were acquired from Craig's List. He talked about how they paired them by temperament and how his girlfriend know what colors should not be bred because you would get dead babies. He also mentioned his website which I had seen about 18 months ago. On there he had made comments like "we breed only the best", "we breed for the right head, most breeders breed for the wrong head", "we sell only as pets and do not give pedigrees because we are not ready to share our bloodlines" and a few others of that type. I really wanted to deck this guy but behaved myself for the sake of the chins. Doc proved to be a female - God only knows how old she is. He mentioned one had a cater act - none do. He also never mentioned the large lump on the shoulder of one of the females. It was huge and you could not miss it. You did not need to feel for it. I got these poor babies home. They were sticky and smelled like pee. 2 were fur chewed. 2 of them could not stand up for a week, they were so weak. At least half were severely underweight. by the way, he made the comment that they had lost quite a few because "you know, they just die."

I am glad to say that they are all clean, lively and doing well. All of the females are on pregnancy watch and the the little girl with the lump saw the vet as soon as I felt she was strong enough. It was a massive cyst. They removed 11 ml of fluid from her poor shoulder. Now she bounces around like a normal chin and it makes me smile to see it.

Well, sorry for the long post, but I had to get this off of my chest. Luckily, they were being evicted for trashing the house and are living in a bus that he said they could not find a place to legally park. I guess he is getting what he deserves. No breeding for him in the near future!