Hi,

I recently took in 5 chinchillas and I am hoping that you guys can offer me some advise on housing them. I did a lot of research to the point of getting conflicting views on most things but felt confident I could offer them what they needed and work out the little things on an individual basis! Now I have a hurdle to get over before I can start because of the living arrangements...

This is what I can tell you: I have 2 pairs, 1 with a baby. Sooty and Sweep are the parents with a 2(?) week old baby, Charlie and Lola are the other pair and Charlie is Sooty and Sweep's son from last year. The pairs are currently in 2 seperate cages and, although they are larger cages than I expected, my aim is to get them in as large a cage as I can manage. My predicament involves the viability of having them all live together.

Can they all be housed together? Will having them neutered make it easier for them to live together? Will having them live together threaten the baby? Will I have to remove the baby once he is 8 weeks and potentially have another set up or can he stay?

Obviously my budget would much better suit 1 big cage rather than splitting it between several smaller so if I am looking at 3 seperate set ups money and space may not allow. I really don't want to have to put another chinchilla on the market and so if it is at all possible to keep them together I would appreciate any instruction.

Apologies for the length of the post but I am new to this and wanted to give enough info for somebody to feel they could help.

Thanks.