Chins Coming Into the Rescue

So, I suppose not everyone is familiar with this, so I wanted to touch on this again.  How it works when chins and other animals come into the rescue. 

When animals come in, they are put into a cage, labeled with their name and surrender date (if they are an owner surrender) and weighed.  Rescues / owner surrenders are kept a minimum of 30 days.  In this 30 days, we get up their name / age / etc on the website under the "under evaluation" section, and mainly, the chins just get fed, watered, and cared for during that period of time.  They are also weighed around the time they come in, so we have a baseline.

Wait!  You say, I've seen some chins materialize on the website and be available within a day or two.  Sometimes this is because we haven't gotten them listed in the "under evaluation" section, and by the time we get to that, they are available.  This is more common when we are way beyond full and have chins coming out our ears.  Right now when we have less chins, you can probably bet almost every single one is listed.  Anyway, in that case, they would magically appear available from the first day.  The other option is that they're not rescues.  If I bring chinchillas from my herd in Ohio, here to Hammond, they don't need the full 30 days.  This is because I know where they are coming from and how they are cared for.  Similarly, they are weighed when they come in.

The purpose of weighing the animals when they come in is to have a baseline.  It can often be difficult to tell if, or how much, a chinchilla is eating, due to the fact that some of them dump their food or dig through their food.  Others with cagemates, well... are they both eating?  Is one being a pig?  Who knows.  So, we weigh them.  For rescues, they're usually weighed at least once, but preferably two times, before they are listed (and then periodically afterwards as well).  The second time is usually right around the 30 day mark, to see how they have progressed.  For younger chinchillas like the typical ones we bring from my herd, they typically should be gaining weight.  For adults, they should be maintaining their weight.  Depending on their previous diet, it may or may not be surprising if we see a weight loss.  We had one chinchilla, years ago, come in eating snack-size snickers bars.  I am NOT even kidding.  Not even a little.  One in the morning, one at noon, and one at night.  It was not at all surprising that he lost some weight.  By weighing them, we were able to monitor this, and once he leveled out, he was put up for adoption.

That's the thing... when I say that they stay here a minimum of 30 days, it's just that... a minimum.  Within the 30 days, if they are sick or not doing well, this will show up, as will if they are not settling in well, or a variety of other things.  But 30 days isn't some magic number.  Sometimes 30 days comes and goes, and we're still not sure if that chinchilla should be put up for adoption.  If there's doubt, the chinchilla stays under evaluation, and will be ready at some future time.  In the end, we don't want to send home a possibly sick or non-well-adjusted chinchilla. 

Assuming the 30 days is up, the weight of the chin has been maintained, and the chin has a personality that is good for adoption purposes (as in, the chin doesn't need to go to a foster home to help work on making them more personable), around 30+ days is when we start taking pictures and start interacting with the chinchilla more.

Why don't we interact more sooner?  To let the chinchilla settle in.  People have occasionally told me how the chinchilla they got was more friendly and outgoing here, and then at home, not as much.  It took time to warm up.  It wasn't as outgoing.  We all need to remember, these animals are prey animals.  A lot out there wants to eat them (so they think) and they need to be cautious.  One thing I've learned in these 16 years of doing this is that if I give them time to settle in, I have a better end result.  When you compare this to the people who take a chin into their home (new people / new other pets / new environment / new cage / new everything) and then try to interact with the chin on day 1, often they are surprised when the chin isn't jumping into their arms like their long-lost-best-friend... but usually there is a reason for this. 

I may have told this story before, but I had a couple take home two chins.  I got a call that night, the chins weren't as friendly at their place as they were here.  So I asked, what had they been doing with the chins since they'd gotten home?  Turns out, they'd been home about 5 hours, and had the chins out of the cage for the majority of the time.  That can be sort of like sensory overload for the chins, not to mention, they might have been getting a little warm as well, depending on temp and whatnot.  So I nicely told them, put the chins in the cage and let them settle in for a bit.  I explained my 30 days.  Of course, I don't expect everyone to do that, but I explained why I do it, and said to leave them alone for a couple days minimum.  Their response was that they would try to leave the chins alone for the night.  Get a text the next day, more of the same, the chins are barking and kacking and not acting happy.  Told them, just feed them and water them and let them settle in.  A week would be good, now that they're acting actually unhappy.  They respond, well maybe we can manage a full day.  Third day, more of the same.  I admit, I was starting to get irritated, because I don't understand why people ask for advice and then don't listen to that advice... so when they repeated the same thing over, and clearly hadn't left the chins alone, at all, my response back was literally, "you're supposed to be leaving them alone."  I sent that text.  I didn't hear from them for a few days, and I really thought I'd pissed them off, but I mean... the chins did need to settle in, and forcing themselves on the chins was not going to be helpful.  A few days later, I get a text.  In so many words, it said something like... you know, since what we were doing wasn't working, we thought we'd give what you said to do a try, and they're doing much better now!  They're back to how they were at your place! ---  Imagine that.  Haha.

It really does make a difference.

So, when they are ready, that is when we start interacting more, and that's also when we start taking pics and writing up a description for them.  Depending on what their personality is like, some of these chins may go to foster homes, and this is when they can go (after the 30 days), but most will stay here and we'll get a listing up, so that people can find their info, apply to adopt them, and bring home their new furball.