Hi all,

This is my first post here, my fiance and I got 2 female chins about 4 months ago from another couple off of craigslist. They told us that they got them from a breeder at about 6 weeks, they are sisters (Laurel is beige & Scarlet is black and gray) we've had them together in the same cage since we first got them. They never really fought, just the occasional barking and chase each other around.

Now today my fiance had them both in the bed with her and it seemed like they were both sleeping, one on each side of her legs. Then, one move towards the other one and a giant fight broke out under the covers. After some time we put both of them back in the cage nothing unusual for the 1st ten minutes then all of a sudden a massive fight broke out. Usually when the fight they chase each other around and one goes to corner or in the house or box and the pursuit stops, not this time tufts of fur were flying houses were toppled over etc.

I reached in there and broke them up and to my horror I noticed Scarlet was bleeding out of her ear. I inspected Laurel quickly and she had a small cut on the tip of her nose right above her left nostril. We took a q-tip with some peroxide and swabbed Scarlet's ear only to find out that Laurel bit right through her ear. We kept them apart for hours, made sure both of them were extremely tuckered out and with Laurel sleeping in her house on the 3rd floor we put a sleepy Scarlet in her box on the 1st floor. The pair slept on their respective floors for about 2 hours then Laurel came down the stairs and I guess snuck up on Scarlet and BAM another fight broke out.

Right now, to punish them I took Scarlet out of the cage and removed all houses and boxes out of the cage. We did have a wheel in there but they chewed it and it broke. We're waiting on new wheels to come in the mail. Laurel is in there all by her self. I'm going to try to put both of them in the empty cage at the same time (my thinking is that Laurel was being territorial all of a sudden and if I remove all shelters then she has nothing to be territorial of.

Please if anyone can help with this dilemma please let me know. I don't have a spare cage unless I guess I could just put one in a cat carrier for the night. Thanks everyone, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is there any way you can split the cage so they can see each other but not cause anymore harm to each other while you decide what best action to take? Is the cage big enough for you to do that?

Yes, I did end up doing that last night, and what i'm doing is switching them around from top to bottom about every 6 hours or so, to stop the territorial behavior. Last night, they were still trying to fight with each other from between the 2 floors. I really don't want to have to keep them seperated for the rest of their lives.

I don't know much about chinchillas but it's possible you will have to start from scratch with these 2 bonding in a completely neutral area before they will live together in thier cage again. Here is a link to a very good chinchilla forum. They may be able to advise you on what to do.

CHINformative - The UK Chinchilla Forum (Powered by Invision Power Board)

i would not put them back together to be honest with you

as a general rule of thumb, with animals once blood has been drawn keep them separate.
they could quite easily kill each other

it could very well be they were never truly bonded, but just tolerant of each other, and the dominant girl decided she didnt want to tolerate her sister any more

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