Getting stuff done and funny contacts

So the last few days have been super productive... have gotten a lot of cages cleaned, a lot of stuff washed... very happy with that.  The one guy that was coming over to wash literally vanished into thin air, but one of my friends suggested that they could take the job over, and they're doing an awesome job of that (and everything else I need), so that's going well at the moment.

Over this current week, we're hopefully going to get a lot done, have a lot more toys in stock, a lot more of that sort of thing, since as you all know, I'm constantly having to make stuff since there's only one of me and 4000 people who want orders.  Which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but I would like to get orders out faster to my customers, and that's where this all comes in.

So today, I have a doctor's appointment in another hour or two, so I'm working on clean stuff in the meantime (as in, nothing that's going to cover me with sawdust), so this morning I've been going around and seeing what chins are here and taking pictures and writing notes about those chins so that I can list them on my website and on the other places that I use.  And in doing so, I ran across two messages from April 17th (oops!), that somehow I never received a notification for, on this one classified site.

Well, these people wanted a chin for their 2 year old.  Probably not messages I really care to entertain anyway, as I don't exactly see most 2 year olds holding a chin properly... usually they squeeze it... whether intentionally or not... and parents rarely correct... but I digress.  But anyway, this was mildly amusing, so I'm going to share it with you.  In one of these messages, the person tells me that their husband used to breed chins, so "we know what we need to do."  I'm assuming that means, they know how to care for chins.  Now, in no way am I saying that they do not know how to care for chins... however... just because they bred chins doesn't mean they do know how to care for them, either.  I have run into umpteen people who have told me they had a chin live to a ripe old age... of 5.  And they think that's awesome!  And those same people tell me, oh they did LOADS and LOADS of research.  And maybe they did, but they somehow missed the part where chins can live into their 20s.  Point is, just because someone's had chins, or raised chins, doesn't mean they've done it right, or that they know what they're doing.  Few years ago, I remember buying some "pedigreed" (and you'll see why I put that in quotes) chins from someone selling out (and I know some of my friends reading this will totally remember when this happened).  Now, for reference... here's what your average pedigree might look like (few examples):

Here's what the pedigree I got from this person looked like:

Notice the difference?  That pedigree is pretty much useless.  If that chin developed malo, for example, there's no way to track the parents.  Oh there's a dark ebony mom... well, what if that breeder had 5 dark ebony females?  Which one is it?  Is it one they bred?  Or from another breeder? If it's from another breeder, especially a large breeder, good luck knowing which one, out of thousands of chins born... it was.  Same with any of the chins on that pedigree.  Absolutely useless.  I believe, if I remember correctly, we didn't get the pedigrees until much later after we got the animals -- which were sold as pets (rather than used for breeding, which was the actual idea).  Maybe somewhere along the line, some of those chins actually were pedigreed, like an actual pedigree, but those ones we got weren't, and it wouldn't be reputable to breed them with no sort of information whatsoever on the parents. 

...and let me also mention something else... anyone could make up a pedigree like that pretty much on the spot.  It's not hard to come up with what two colors of chins created another color of chin as a baby.  Oh you have a beige baby?  Great!  Standard grey mother, beige father, and POOF! beige baby.  Look!  A pedigree!!!  And I've seen this, sadly, way more than I would like.  There was a girl (I think I called her the problem child, you may remember me writing about her) who contacted me about breeding her chins, and ALL her pedigrees looked like this.  And the sad part was, for her, it was even worse.  Like at least for the pedigree for that one chin above, it's not every color under the sun. The chin that the pedigree was for, was supposed to be a chocolate (it wasn't, but that's beside the point).  For a chocolate / dark tan, you would need beige, tan, and ebony.  So that pedigree at least vaguely makes sense...  For the problem child girl, her chin would be an ebony... and would have a violet in there... and a tan... and a beige... and a sapphire... but she'd tell me, oh the breeder was breeding for sapphires... so I'd ask, ok, why add in the ebony then?  Oh, because it will get rid of the red coloration in the chins and make it more blue.  *facepalm*  If you have any knowledge of chin genetics at all and how the colors and all that work, you know... and if you don't, let me tell you... that is such a crock of shit.  There's no way to breed the red coloration out of an animal... you just try to AVOID breeding animals that have red fur tips.  But you sure don't add ebonies to get rid of red.... 

Anyway, moving along... the second message from these people stated -- "He has raised and bred purple sapphires with vet papers" -- now, let's assume you're a pet person, don't breed, don't know much about genetics.  Tell me, what color is sapphire?  Ok, I imagine we can all answer at once -- BLUE.  So if he bred purple sapphires... those were either some really off-color sapphires, or he had blue diamonds and she has no idea what she's talking about.  But since blue diamonds are more of a new thing... I'd imagine the first...

Vet papers?  How many of you can say you've taken a chin to the vet, and it's clearly sick, and one of two things -- either (1) the vet has NO IDEA what's wrong with the chin, or, possibly even better, (2) the vet can't tell the chin's sick, or (3) the vet gives some random off the wall explanation for why the chin is the way it is, such as "the chin is homesick" (and yes, I've heard it happen -- "stressed" would be a better way of putting it, I think "homesick" is giving that chin a little too much mental credit).  But for sake of argument, let's say you have a smart vet, and they actually can tell you, and be correct in telling you, ok, your chin is healthy.  Does that mean that genetically, it's fine?  Doesn't carry malo or any other illness?  No, unfortunately, they can't tell you that.  These aren't dogs, we can't do genetic testing on them.  So, even if your vet has said, ok, the chin is healthy... that doesn't mean, ok, go ahead and breed it, because you just don't know what that chin might be carrying.  And that's why pedigrees are so important, because that way if something comes up, we can trace it back.  But a vet paper saying, oh the chin is healthy... really doesn't mean much.

This is one of those things where I get that this person was trying to let me know that they've had chins before and they know what they're doing... but they really proved that they probably really don't know what they're doing, at least as far as the breeding with vet papers and purple sapphires...  I feel like this is an interesting case of... if you really don't know what you're talking about... best to leave it simple.  If they had just said, oh they bred chins, and left it at that, I wouldn't be writing this blog post (well, maybe a much shorter one).  And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I know everything either... but I know what color sapphire is...

Oak Lawn Expo Day #1

So today went well.  Didn't have much in terms of sales at the expo, a hammock and some treats, but we did talk to a lot of great people, some of who seemed interested in adopting, so fingers crossed for that...

As usual, Summer garnered a lot of attention, and she got a lot of pets for her efforts.

We did our presentation on chinchillas -- well, I presented, Tom (of West Burb Weiners) held Hercules while I presented, and we actually had quite a few people sitting around and listening to me talk about chinchillas and how they knew if that was the right pet for them...

We also had two chin adoptions today at the expo -- everything done in advance except, of course, picking up the chins.  So, those went well, and Max and Fritz, and a young violet male both went home.  Yay for them in their new homes.  So since Max and Fritz's cage is now open, I went to email people on my waiting list to bring in their chins.  First person for me to email was someone who had gotten two chins from me, and who had emailed saying they were more work than they had originally thought.  So I emailed them saying I had room for the chins, and almost immediately got an email back saying, oh they decided to keep them.  Alright, then, moving along.

So I emailed the next person on my list, and so now we're currently working on arranging when they can bring their chins by.

So then, wanted to give a shoutout to Tim P., who was our volunteer at the expo today.  Thanks to Tim for coming by and helping us out!  

And then on Sunday, we had Kristy come out and help us at the expo, thanks Kristy!  

Deliveries

So... I've delivered a fair number of chins over the past year, and some people think the delivery fee is fine, others are horrified.  So let me explain..

While there's a few people that want local delivery, most people want delivery cause they're umpteen hours away.  That's the idea, they don't want to spend an entire day between driving here and driving back home... and I get it.  But that doesn't mean delivery is going to be $20...

So take this one person today, for example.  They asked me, do they have to come here to pick up a chin, or do we deliver?  So I told em, we deliver for a fee.  So she gave me the address and I looked it up... about 3-4 hours away... $139 delivery fee.  They said, too much.  They asked, ok, what if they met met a bit closer, maybe a half hour away from their home, would that make it cheaper?  Well sure, but not by much.  Figured it out, it would bring down delivery to $110.  They said, still too much, the chin's only $175.

So I told em, if they want it cheaper, the cheaper option is for them to drive the 6 hour roundtrip and come pick up the chin.  Then it's their gas, their time spent getting the chin.

Because here's the thing.  I'm not trying to be an ass, and I'm not trying to get oodles of money out of people.  But it's at least, absolute minimum, a 6 hour roundtrip.  Which will more likely turn into an 8 hour roundtrip with traffic, construction, and so on.... so an entire day wasted making all of $175 on a chin.  As most of you know, I'm typically behind on orders, behind on getting back to emails, and so on and so forth.  The last thing I need is to spend 6+ hours away from home when I have oodles of things to do, and make just about nothing for it.  By the time I take the actual amount made with delivery, subtract out what it will cost me in gas, I'm usually not even making minimum wage per hour.  And don't get me wrong, good homes are nice to find, but I could be at home sending out packages.  I could be doing umpteen other things... rather than driving a chin to someone.  So I'd rather not do the long deliveries ANYWAY, but if I do, I don't really care for when the people want to argue over the price.

So anyway, this person says, ok, how bout $300 for chin and delivery to the house.  Sorry, no.  Again, not trying to be a butt, however... I've learned, I need to stick up for myself and not be a doormat.  People want something, this isn't a garage sale, it isn't up for debate, the amount is what the amount is.

And in reality, the amount to their door was only $314 (which the person asked about), and

Emails... and more emails...

So, I know I need to get more on the ball as far as posting this sort of stuff.... and I will... but let me explain why that sometimes doesn't happen.

I got up at 9 am today, and fed and watered all the chins.  That took me til a little after 10:15ish, and in the middle there, I had my blazer picked up for detailing... which, never fails, I will be packing it for an expo tomorrow... I will do my BEST to keep it clean!!

Anyway, so after I fed and watered the critters, I took out a few of them, snapped some pics and dictated notes on them to my phone. 

Even if I don't respond to all my emails right away, I typically do look through them, so I see if I need to snap pics for someone, or what the case may be... so I did, and I noticed someone had asked to see pics of a pair of boys here, and mentioned they were also looking at chins from another breeder.  Well if that didn't light the fire under my butt, nothing would (don't want to lose chins to the competition), so I snapped pics of those chins and a few others that people were asking about in email, and went upstairs.  Emailed that specific guy back, saying ok, I will send the pics directly from my phone in another email.  He likes the chins (yay!), and we emailed back and forth a few times, emails crossing multiple times, until the moment he decided to be the smart one and called me up.  So we talked for awhile, he's going to come to the expo this weekend and pick up the pair of chins.  Yay. 

So then since that, I've been working on other emails.  I had someone else that wanted a literal baby rescue, and since I picked up the chins from another rescue in Pennsylvania -- a mom and three babies -- for once I do have literal baby rescues... so I told her, and she wanted the adoption form and all that, so I sent those over.  I completely spaced on checking if any of the babies are girls (I just didn't check sexes at all... they have some time to go before weaning, so at this point it really doesn't matter), but I need to check on that and get back to her, because she would like a female.

Then someone else emailed, saying they will be at the expo this weekend and would like to meet me and the chins, and were asking if a certain chin was still available (it is), and so I mentioned to them that I could bring it to the expo if they wanted, and so on and so forth...

So then I went to another email asking about pairing up chins and explained, no way to know if they'll get along without trying it (you all know the story, you've heard me rant about it a million times)...

Then I realized that I sold a large cage the other day, and had not yet ordered another one, so I went online and did that.

Then someone wants to stop by this weekend to pick up some food, so I emailed them back so we can arrange what day and what time works best for all of us...

And between people responding to emails that I sent, and then me responding to those, and so on and so forth... it is now 2:39 pm, I've been working on emails since 10:15ish, over 4 hours... and just NOW have I finally responded to all of them.  I am now going to start working on listing chins...

... but this is just an example of why sometimes things get behind. 

Flake Week

I officially dub the last week-ish amount of time, Flake Week.

Now I know, I've said I need to stop writing so much about things that go bad, but this takes the cake.  These several people brought it all on....

It all starts last week when I had to deliver a chinchilla to Muncie on late notice.  I didn't think I'd be able to get back in time for one of my appointments, so I contacted them and moved their appointment to later in the day.  So that was fine with them, no problem, but sometime during the day, they texted me to say that they couldn't make that appointment either.  Which was fine, so we were working to reschedule, and couldn't find a day / time that was working for both of us.  This person just needed to drop off a deposit, so I told them, put it in an envelope, drop it off anytime in the mailbox.  They said that would work great, so I expected that when I got back from my last trip out of town, it would be there. 

Well that was clearly a stupid expectation, and the beginning of Flake Week. 

So I messaged that person, explaining that I need a deposit, like, yesterday, because I've already held the chin for over 7 days and have other people inquiring... and their relative was supposed to come  few hours ago to drop it off.  They never showed, so I texted the person and said, hey, are they still coming, cause I need to leave (which they knew).  They said they hadn't heard from the person all day, so they guessed I could take the chin off hold.  I told them, if they happened to get here anytime soon, and I still had the chin, they could put him back on hold...

Moving along.  I posted a picture of the sapphire wrap chin that we have here with a shredded wheat square and a caption on facebook.  In case you haven't seen it,

"Why haven't I gone home yet?? Is it my ear?? Mom, people don't like my ear...."
--sapphire wrap male

 

So naturally, people started messaging asking about him and potentially wanting to adopt.  Wait!  Don't celebrate just yet.  So we set the first appointment for the following day.  She said, in the event she wasn't going to be able to make it, she would message me.  And she did, and we rescheduled for Wednesday night.  Come Wednesday night, she was supposed to come at 5 pm... 5:15 rolls around, I have not heard from her, I have not seen her, nothing.  So I message her on facebook, and she says, oh she's not feeling well.....oh but she still really wants him!!!  Which, again, would be fine... except... was she ever going to tell me about her not feeling well and not coming??  Apparently not.  So I told her the same thing I told the other person, we only hold for 7 days without a deposit (and this person was also coming to put down a deposit), so she needed to get here by the time I left on Friday (today) to get a deposit down or he wouldn't stay on hold for her.  So she says, ok, she can come before work on Friday.  Awesome.  So we plan for 8:30 am Friday... and it's over an hour later and she has not showed up...

Moving along... we had another person scheduled to come by to pick up a chin.  Didn't show up for the first appointment, so I texted them.  Oh something came up, so we rescheduled.  

And let me pause here for a second to say that if you actually DO contact me, PREFERABLY BEFORE your appointment, to tell me you can't come, I am very happy to reschedule your appointment and you'll just about never end up in the blog (but hey, if you want the fame...).  It's only because these people leave me waiting and hanging that they are ending up here...

...back to the story, so we have rescheduled with this person, and they don't show up for the next appointment.  So I text them and they forgot, so they want to come by the following day.  So we reschedule for the following day, let's say 2 pm, and I text them at 2:15ish.  They text back maybe 2:45, they are coming... just running late... I think 2 hours later they showed up. 

Then we have the facebook nut.  Nut saw the picture of the sapphire wrap (and pictures of multiple other chins), commented on all of them, sent me umpteen messages, and I woke up to a full inbox of everything.  Which is fine, so I start responding to comments and I see that this person has messaged the rescue page, so I message back.  And as I'm typing the messages, I can see that this person is online, because I can't type the answers quick enough, they keep sending more questions.  Which again, is fine, but apparently I'm not getting it done quick enough for them, because before I can hit send (and at this point, I have quite the book written cause they've asked all sorts of things), they call me.  So then I can't get them off the phone for 2 hours, but we had a good conversation and I really thought they were going to adopt.  They had picked out one of the males here and decided they wanted a pair, so I told them I would look and see what other males I had that I thought would pair with that one, and send them a list, so they could pick and say, ok, try these two together.  I go downstairs, and before I can even think to look at other males, I get a message that says, oh they found a really sweet male chin by them that they just can't pass up, but they still want to get mine, as long as they get along.  And so they ask, what's the chance of them getting along?

Well, really, and I'm sure I've said this a million times over now... there's no way to know until you try.  Even if my chin is the calmest chin ever and LOVES other chins, and your chin is ALSO the calmest chin ever and LOVES other chins, they may HATE each other.  I didn't word it quite like that, but I did tell this person basically the gist of that.  And, this person had been asking about me delivering the chin to them, 4+ hours away, so then the topic turned to me bringing the chin there and it not working out.

Oh no.  Oh hell no.  Not happening.

I told them, the only way I deliver (or meet, or whatever), is when the adoption is a sure thing.  As in, there's no "let's see if they pair," or "let's see if I like the chin..."  Personally, I don't care if someone wants me to bring 3 chins with me, as long as they're picking one and taking one home, but there has to be an adoption, or I'm not driving.  And before you say it, no, it makes no difference that I charge for delivery, because a 4+ hour delivery, let's say, is 250 miles one way.  That's 500 miles round trip, and 8+ hours of driving.  By the time I factor in the cost of gas, and just the literal time it takes me to get there and back, plus the fact that I pretty much need to have no appointments all day and make sure I make it home for any I do have... I'm usually not making minimum wage for my time spent.  And personally, I'd rather be sitting home, listing chins on the website and working on orders (believe me, the rescue benefits more from those than from 90% of my deliveries).  I'm not going all that way, finding out a pairing doesn't work, and turning around and going home with minimum wage earnings for my time.  Especially since most days that I deliver, I've had to turn down appointments for those days since I won't be home.  So I told this person that, and they said, oh well they'll really have to think about this.  Yeah.

What I don't get is, if you had been talking to this person, you would fully think, 100%, that they were going to adopt the chin from me, plus the buddy chin.  And then all of a sudden they find a chin by them?  I guess I don't get why they would even be LOOKING for chins by them.  Or if they decided, ok, they didn't want to get one from here, or whatever, why not just say so?  I guess I'm the type, I'd rather just say, you know what, I changed my mind... as opposed to this sort of thing...

Moving onto the second-to-last one... had someone text me last night, asking if I was the chinchilla breeder in Indiana.  Said yeah, and they said they were looking to get a pair of chins.  So I asked, male / female, young / old?  And they said, they wanted males, and they wanted to spend less than $175 for the pair.  Ok, so adults.  So I told them that and I said I'm sure I had some nice adults they could get for $175 or less for the pair.  So then they ask about my used cages, and want pictures and prices so I send those.  So then they ask, how long are the adults going to live?  Well, it depends on how old they are when they're adopted.  If they're 4 years old, hopefully a long time, if they're 13 years old, maybe not so long.  But really, it's hard to say.  Chins can die at 4 years old and other chins can live to be 25... so hard to say.  So then they text and say, oh you know what? they're going to look at a pet store by them, but they're still probably going to get a chin from me, because they doubt they'll end up with two from the pet store. 

And that was about when my head exploded.

First off... a pet store chin at any chain pet store tends to be $129.99 and up.  $129.99 with Indiana tax is right about $140... leaving all of $35 for that second chin?  Um... ok.  Not going to get a chin from me for that amount, even my inexpensive seniors are $50-75.  And if they want to SAVE money, the pet store isn't the place for that.  So then they text me, they got a chin, and a cage, and they're not sure if the cage is good or not, so they want opinions on that... and they again make the comment about wanting the buddy for the chin.  And I tell them, like I told the last one, there is honestly no way to know if the chins will get together without trying them, but I can't guarantee that any two chins will get along.  They said, oh, hmmm good point.  Well, they still may be contacting me sometime! (so they say).

And the last one, possibly the most aggravating, because I know these people personally and I expected more of them.  You all may remember those nametags that we started doing awhile back... I had a volunteer doing them.  So the first one was in Sharpie, and looked good, and they said they could woodburn too, so I was like awesome, we'll add that on.  So, a few days after I added on the nametags, which I will note, was February 28th, I had an order for 2 of them, and the person wanted them woodburned.  So it was several days before the person came by, so I thought, oh plenty of time.  Stupid stupid stupid.  So they went to turn on their woodburner and said, oh it doesn't work.  Ok, so I asked if they had plans to get another, or what was the case with that, and they said, yeah, they were going to get another one that night.  They said they would bring the completed nametags by, in time for my appointment, at 1 pm.  1 pm came, 1 pm went... never saw them.  Texted and they said, oh they got a wood burner, but they couldn't find a plug in one (seriously?  Menards and Home Depot both have 3 different options for plug-in-wood-burners and those were the first two places I looked) so they bought one that uses a little butane tank, and couldn't find one.  Um... every gas station has those little butane tanks.  Anyway, rather than take the time to go anywhere and find the tank, they said they ordered it online.  Apparently from Africa, as 3 weeks later, they still didn't have the stinking thing.   But that entire time, they had the wood, and were not informing me of anything... so it wouldn't be until I messaged them that they'd say, oh they hadn't gotten the tank in yet.  Fine.

So finally I said, ok, would it be better if I just went out and bought a plug in one for them to use?  They said, yeah, that's be great, that way they could just come over when I needed one done and do it on the spot.  Great!..or so I thought.  So I went and got one (and these things are like $10, so I don't know what the big deal is) and found a plug-in one no problem, and this person came over.  Part way through the first one, they mysteriously had to leave.  So they took the wood with them, and the wood burner... and it took two weeks of me pestering them before they finally got the pieces back to me...and they looked crappy.  Now personally, if I was making something for someone and it turned out this bad, I would have messaged and said, hey, I don't think these are as good as what I did before with Sharpie, what would you like me to do?  But they didn't say anything like that, just dropped off these considerably less nice and less professional looking nametags.  So I show the nametags to the prospective buyers... who agreed and said basically the same thing... the pictures (original ones with Sharpie... the example pictures), looked way nicer, much more professional, they didn't want to pay for the ones that were woodburned as they didn't think they looked nice.  Great. 

 Mind you, this entire time that I'd been waiting had been back and forth, are they done yet?  No, but soon!  Ok, several days  later, now?  No, not yet!  Soon though!!  Several weeks later... done?  Sorry, no, working on them though!!   Which I find SUPER aggravating.

So I texted the volunteer back and asked, hey, was there a problem with the woodburner, or what was going on, and said what had happened with the customers?  They said the wood burner didn't burn all the wood right and that made it look bad (or something), and the Sharpie was much easier.  Well, one of the customer had said that they wouldn't mind theirs in Sharpie instead, so I asked, if the customers want them with Sharpie, would this person mind doing them?  They said no problem.

So now, the "no problem to the Sharpie'd ones" message was at least a week ago, if not longer.  Since then, I've been texting trying to get them to pick up the new pieces of wood for the new nametags.  The other day, they said they were going to stop by after work.  They didn't.  So I texted the following day asking if it'd be easier if I left them outside on the porch.  No response.  So I texted this morning asking if they got that text... they said, yeah, that'd be easier. 

Needless to say, I'm in the marker for a new nametag volunteer.  I have some people who've mentioned they may be able to do it, so I'll see what comes of that, because I can't let my reputation and my rescue / business go down because these people can't get their act together and work on the nametags (which, mind you, they offered to do... I'm not forcing anyone to do anything)....which is only making me look bad in the long run...

And I believe that's it and concludes this week of flake week.  ONLY because I am leaving to go to a chin show in Pennsylvania... otherwise, this week might continue...


I should note... despite the fact we've had this ridiculously many of these in such a short period of time... usually we have great adopters, and usually without these long lists of frustrations.  Among these flaky adopters, we had several that called, showed up, filled out adoption forms, and went home with chins.  So far this year, we've already rehomed at least 70 chinchillas (probably more, but you know me, being up-to-date on paperwork is not my strong point).  So these few people are the exception... just the very loud, notable exception right now...

Webstore & Shipping & Hibiscus

So, you may or may not have noticed, but the webstore is back open!  Yay!  With some added items -- now, you can get your hidey house or chin-vehicle in a color!  You can also get a name-tag for your cage! 

Colored example (chinny-mobile)

Name-tag example

And the name-tags could also attach to the cage with a bolt through that piece of wood (and washers and a wingnut), if someone would prefer that way.  They can also be wood-burned.  And some options for style designs:

And another note about the webstore:  shipping went up.  Yeah, I know, I know.  Hey, complain to the post office, I wouldn't raise it if they didn't raise it...   Most stuff didn't go up much.  I think I raised shipping prices on toys like $0.50, on loofah $0.25... and so on.  The stuff in medium flat rate boxes went up $1 to cover the shipping increase.  Not much, but it adds up.  However, as always, anything over the actual cost of shipping, plus ~ $0.75 handling, gets refunded.  So when the shopping cart shows up $30 shipping and you're like holy cow, no way... probably isn't really that high (unless you're on the east or west coast), and whatever overage will be refunded.

And lastly, hibiscus.  We used to carry hibiscus c/s (cut and sifted) because that was all I could get my hands on, but I was never a fan of it because it was basically like purple sand.  Little little LITTLE pieces.  Well now, we can get the hibiscus petals (dried, of course), so those are now available, at the same price.  And I've switched over the pictures on the listings (on the webstore and supplies for sale page) to show the new stuff.  Which looks like this (1 oz pictured):

All Aboard? No?

This is one of those things I will never understand.  People asking about chins and wanting everything basically done for them... and then saying, oh well not everyone's on board with this, sorry.

So this one lady contacted me, asking if I had any chins of a specific color that doesn't sell well.  I said no, and I don't get them often, and I told her, if she for sure wanted one, and would put down a deposit on one just based off pics (which I could send from Jim's), I would get one.  She sort of hemmed and hawed and said, well, if you get one, let them know.

So, I didn't have one for a few weeks, and I told her, check the website, maybe they'd find something else they'd like.  So she said, oh they have, but the son really likes this one color in females.  Which is fine, no big deal.  Again, she says, if you get one in, let us know.

So I get one in, and I think about these people, so I find their email, and email them saying I got in this female, color you wanted, this age, yadda yadda, were you interested?  Because you know, it's been a few weeks, they may no longer be.

The email back says basically, well, not everyone's on board with the chin, the significant other still isn't feeling it, but definitely send pics.  So I did, and told them, if everyone gets on board, just let me know.

But... I don't get it.  Why would you even go looking for a chin (or any pet for that matter) if the family's not all on board?  I mean, let's be honest.  ANY rescue you do this to will find you aggravating.  You waste their time, wanting pics, wanting to know, did you get it in?  Oh you did!!  Wait!!  We're not quite sure we want to adopt it.  Thanks though!!! 

I just don't get it.  WAIT until you're ready. 

Now, I don't mean, ok, next month you're moving and once you're settled in you're going to get a chin.  By all means, email early, we can have time to go through the whole thing.  But at least then everyone's on board with all of it and just waiting until the timing is right.  But if you're not sure... or someone's not sure... on behalf of rescues everywhere that have enough to deal with, without entertaining people like this, wait until everyone's positive they want to adopt.  Thank you.

Rabbits and Oddball Questions

So, I have one rabbit listed right now -- BunnyLove.  Before I go on, let me copy and paste the relevant part of her ad:

 This girl originally came from a hoarding situation, we were told in Kentucky, and was taken in by another rescue.  She was fostered out, but unfortunately, her foster home was unable to care for her after some time, so she came to our rescue…and now she is available for adoption.

Unfortunately, we do not know how old BunnyLove is.  She’s definitely an adult, but past that, no one knows.  We’re also not sure exactly what type of rabbit she is.  We believe that she is a lop x lionhead mix, possibly with something else in there, but not positive as far as what.  She is a larger rabbit, at least 5-7 pounds, so the lop part would need to be a larger lop, if she is a lop x lionhead mix.  

She is cage aggressive.  She’s not the rabbit for you if you have little kids that want to help clean the cage.  We use a litter scoop to scoop her litter pan, and she will take her front paws and swat at it.  She will also lunge for you from across the cage while you’re cleaning it.  She has nipped, once, while doing this, so we advise that she not go to a home with little kids.  Ideally, the solution is to take her out when cleaning her cage.  

Other than the cage aggressiveness, she is fine.  If you reach through the bars to pet her, especially on her forehead, she will just sit there and enjoy the pets.  When out of the cage, she is fine as well… she just does not like people reaching into her space.

She is litterbox trained, for the most part (few spare poos here and there), which does make cage cleaning easy.  It’s scooping up the loose poos which is when we notice the cage aggressiveness.  She will come with her litterbox, although it’s nothing special.  But she does use it.

She will need a larger rabbit cage or an x-pen, as she is a large rabbit.  Keep this in mind.  If you need a rabbit cage, we do have some larger ones for sale.

She loves her carrots and leafy greens (though is not a fan of spinach), and is happy to munch on them as well as her pellets.  She is eating MannaPro Pro Rabbit and will come with 4 pounds to start you off with, as well as a printed out version of our Rabbit Care Packet.

We don’t know if she gets along with other rabbits.

As far as we know, she is not spayed.

... I got a call yesterday asking about the rabbit.  Said she wanted to know how old she was.  Now, look back up at the ad.  Do I mention how old she is?  Oh yes!  Right at the top!  Well, actually, we mention that we don't know how old she is, but regardless, it's in there.

The lady then says, oh, well how big is she?  Honest to God.  Also in the ad.

This is followed up by the lady telling me that she wants to get the rabbit as a rabbit for her little kid.  Pardon me for not being a fan of rabbits being Easter presents, but let's put that aside for a moment -- did she not read the freaking ad?????  It specifically says, we don't recommend a household with kids.  So then she asks, oh, why not?  I actually said something to the tune of, she must not have read the ad, because I said, as it says in the ad, she's cage aggressive, not for little kids.  So the lady says, oh well then I wouldn't want her with my boy.  No shit, sherlock, that's why we don't recommend her for a household with kids, cause kids aren't careful (in general) and the rabbit is cage aggressive and has lunged and nipped before.

So she then tells me, well she's going to continue her search.  She could have avoided this phone call entirely if she had just READ the ad.  Must be DIFFICULT FOR SOME PEOPLE.  Jeez.

So then I got a call today from Minnesota asking if this was a rescue or a shelter or what.  So I told them, this is a chinchilla & small animal shelter.  So the guy says oh, he's looking for a shelter, for himself, a human shelter.  Sorry, not one of those.  So he asks, am I sure we can't take him in?  Sorry, not that type of shelter.  Oh, well do I know of any?  Sorry, unfortunately I don't.  Actually, I don't know of any shelters locally, much less in Minnesota.  I'm not making fun, don't get me wrong, this is just an example of the oddball calls that I get all the time...

Going on's....mid Feb.

So... the webstore will be back open soon!  Yayyyy!!

Working on currently making toys, houses, everything, so everything will be ready for the webstore to open again.  Soon.  Very soon. 

And almost caught up on orders.

But of course, we have the fun people, as always.  For the rats, for example.  I have that unless someone already has a rat that they want to get a buddy for, they need to get the rats in pairs.   So naturally, what email do I get?  "So, do I have to adopt both?"  Yes.  Just as the ad says.  And this person went on to say that they had one rat before and they played with it everyday, and it wasn't like it was going to be a child's neglected pet.  Now, not to say it would be a neglected pet... but the reason we now have the policy of adopting out rats in pairs (the exception being single rats or rats that don't like buddies) is because when we'd get back rats adopted out singly, possibly due to the fact they weren't handled, played with, what have you, they always came back aggressive.  This did not happen with the pair rats.  And when I have to clean up the mess people make, I try to find a way to make it a cleaner mess for when I get it back.  And not to say that she wouldn't interact with the rat great... but let's be honest... how many adopters SAY that they're going to always take out the animal, and always play with it.... oh yeah, all of them... and some do... but for others... that doesn't last long.  So, not taking my chances.

Then of course we had the people who back out at the last minute after dragging on and on.  Had one person who wanted to meet.  They were a few hours away, and I told them, I'd meet for mileage, and they had their chins picked out.  A few days before pickup, they email asking if the chins have a pedigree, because they heard they should get chins with a pedigree.  I told them, those specific ones don't... so they asked, as a breeder, shouldn't I have pedigrees.  Yes, sure do.  On all my breeding animals.  But I went on to explain, most breeders sell pet-only animals without a pedigree (cause people see the pedigree and go, "oooooooh!!  I can breed and make $$$$!!!" -- which the $$$ never happens but you know...), but regardless, I did not breed these animals, another breeder did, and while they technically came from pedigreed parents, they are not coming with a pedigree.  So the people want to know, can I get it later.   No.  They're pets.  I explain to them, a pedigree wouldn't mean much to the average person.  It's a series of ranch brands, numbers, and letters.  That's it. 

For example -- What does MNWI D8 mean to you?  Probably nothing.  To me, that's Dillon, my Reserve White male at Nationals last year.  I bred him, so he has my ranch brand, MNWI, he was born in 2014 (year D) and he was the 8th baby born that year (so D8).  He was out of Nikki (MCBD B5, a hetero beige, Lemler bred, out of JAGS T726 and MCBD V2) and Ace (5R9 B-something, a standard grey male, out of 5R9 V1828 and 5R9 V1889).  Now, as a pet person, is any of that particularly useful to you if I was selling Dillon to you as a pet?  Probably not. 

Anyway, I explain this to her, and I don't hear from her for a few days.  It's drawing near to the day we're supposed to meet, and they have not yet confirmed that we're meeting at the place we talked about, so I send another email asking them to confirm that, what sort of car they're going to be driving, what their cell phone number is.  The boyfriend emails back, said someone gave them some rescue chins that they're going to rehab and rehome and then they might still be interested in adopting.  Um... right.  Somehow I see that as an excuse.  Just like, years ago,  I had this one girl that had to check with her landlord about getting a chin, a medium ebony male, Kayto.  She told me to check back in a few days....so I did... and then, oh check back in a few days... so I did... and so on.  Every time, she kept saying, oh her landlord hadn't gotten back to her yet.  Again I feel like that's an excuse.  Not saying landlords couldn't be like that, but if they really wanted an answer, they'd bug the shit outta the landlord... cause this dragged out for weeks.  Finally, it occurred to me they were just avoiding saying they didn't want the chin (which would have been fine, honest to god people, just tell me that), so I sent an email saying, well if the landlord ever does say you can have the chin, let me know.  Never heard back. 

And actually, that worked out just fine, cause I didn't have to drive the 5 hours roundtrip (the mileage fee doesn't actually make me money, it just allows me to not lose money), and I sold the chins a few days later anyway to someone else.

But then there's another person.  If you've talked to me in person lately, you've probably heard about this one.  Someone contacted me awhile back about adopting a dark ebony chin.  Fell off the planet right about pickup time.  So then, contacted back maybe 6 months later (maybe a month ago now) wanting a tan.  I told her, I didn't have any.  So she wants pics of all these chins I have, so I send them to her.  Then she asks if I could pleeeeeease try to get a violet wrap.  So through some miracle, I get one in.  Which I thought was awesome cause she wouldn't leave me alone about the chinchilla.  I get it in, show her pics... it's not dark enough.  People, this violet wrap would have been in the "dark" class at a show, no question, and they don't come darker unless you'd like an extra dark ebony.  So then later, she asks if I can get in something else for her.  Now, personally, not a fan of personal requests unless it's something I can easily sell anyway, because otherwise it tends to sit here... and since she didn't like the first chin, even though it was exactly what she wanted, I told her, nicely enough, what was my last open cage is now holding that violet wrap.  Sorry.  So she finally decided on my beige female.  Then asked how I know it's not a tan.  Well, cause that one I bred, and there's no ebony in the lines, and she has a white belly.  Not the greatest, crispest white belly, but it is white.  No ebony, no tan.  So she asks for a picture of the belly, so I send that over.  She decides she likes it and wants that chin.  So then she asks if I can  meet her in Ohio, because she can't drive all the way to Indiana.  Mind you, this person has known for months at this point where I live.  I tell her, I can meet her at a gas station I stop at in Ohio every Monday, which she was fine with.  So, we're working to arrange all this, and she decides she can't get the chin for a few weeks.  So I tell her, she needs to put down a deposit.  The chin was $150, so she needed to put down $75.  She sent $15.  Was not happy about that, and I told her, she needs to send more money to keep that chin on hold, because I don't let people hold chins for 10%.  So, she says she'll send more in another few days.  So then, a few days before pickup, she decides she also wants my black velvet female, and asks if I can put the two together and see how they do.  They do fine.  So then, this same person who, mind you, has just told me they have no money, tells me they went, the previous day, to a large chinchilla ranch, and purchased four chinchillas.  Now, even if they bought cheap chins, there's no way they paid less than $100 per chin, so at least $400 spent.  But this person could not manage to put down more than a $15 deposit for me.  But I leave it alone, because I think, well, I'm going to see her in a few days and she's going to get these two chins.  Then I get a text, oh her one chin was sick, had to be put down.  She wasn't sure if the cagemate was sick as well, so she wanted to watch her, but besides that, didn't want to bring in any more chins at the moment.  Mind you, after just bringing in four chins from a large ranch after she had already agreed and put a (miniscule) deposit down on the one I had here.  She ended up saying, oh maybe she'll come to Nationals and pick up some chins then.  Not from ME she won't.  I am DONE. 

And here's the thing.  I tried to be nice.  When she put down the $15, I told her, breeders are not going to let you do this shit.  I told her to send $75, she sent $15 -- I told her, you do this for anyone else and that chin will not be on hold for you.  Heck, most chins I've ever had on hold from another breeder, for example, one that I'd pick up at a show, I've either paid for completely or had a significant deposit down on (and pay the rest at pickup).  No $15 on a $150 animal, nope.  And she always said, oh she appreciated me being helpful and willing to work with her and all that.  Uh-huh.  Appreciated it enough to walk all over me and go buy chins from a larger breeder (who I guarantee had her pay in full) while telling me she couldn't pay the money for mine at the moment.  Not dealing with her again, nope.

I should mention, I write a lot about the bad apples.  I realize that.  But most people are very sweet and very nice and very understanding.  Multiple people email, call, text, wanting to adopt.  They show up, pick out a chin, fill out the adoption form, get supplies, a cage, what have you.  And so on their merry way with a chin.  Nothing bad about it.  It's just one of those things, the bad ones stick out like sore thumbs cause when they're bad apples, they're not just people who email once and dissapear, they email like 40 times and waste hours of my time, and THEN disappear.

Anyway, that's about it for now.  Have people coming today, so need to get ready for them.

Updates and going on's.

So, I know it's February, and I know the store isn't back open yet.  Hopefully soon.  But lots of other things have been going on.

As you may have noticed, we have a current sale on chins.  Lots of chins available, lots more that I've taken pics of and have notes on... just need to write up descriptions and get them all listed.  Sounds really quick and simple but it really isn't...

Had a few people lately that I've been talking to and mentioning how if I only had to do the orders, or if I only had to deal with adoptions, basically one or the other, things would go quicker.  Things wouldn't get behind (or at least, as far behind).  So they were asking what else goes on that takes up my time... so the other day, I wrote down the different things that I was doing.  Some of which pertain more to my own chins than to the rescue ones, but since when I sell mine, the money goes to the rescue... it's still related.

So... the other day I was going around to all the runs and looking to see which needed closed off.  See, when a female has babies, typically you want to make sure you close off the run (and the male chin) from her within a day or two.  But easier said than done, because I don't always have the run close-offs handy, so that's one of those things that sometimes get done on day 2.  Anyway, so I was going around looking for ones to shut off, and I noticed Ace's run had two chins in it.  Like IN the run.  Well, that sure ain't right.  So, I could tell which one was Ace, and which one wasn't, so I tried to corral the female back into her cage.  Well... she somehow got in the run with her collar on, and couldn't seem to get back through the run-hole with that stinkin collar on.  I could see that the rivet was out of the collar, but this specific female is known for biting, so I didn't want to really chance getting too close to her head, because you know, sharp pointy teeth attached.  So I had the runway forks in there and tried and tried and tried to get her to jump back in her own cage.  Cause come on, she got in the run with that collar on, she could surely get out of the run with that collar on.

She refused.

So, that's one of my older sets of runs, which are on stands on wheels.  So, I moved everything to the left of the left set of runs, and scooted that entire stand over about a foot.  So I had about a foot of space to work with in between these two runs.  Now, the top run is just clipped closed, because it used to be clipped together... so it's not ringed together (which would be more difficult to open and close).  So I come back to the front of the cages and corral Ace into the other female's cage and close off that hole, so they had to stay in there.  The idea being, so I could corral the female that was in the run, all the way to the one side and open the run and grab her out that way.  And then, before she took a chunk out of me, get her back into her cage.  Well, I go to the side.  Get on the step stool, open the run, grab the runway forks to corral her to the left... and she jumps back into her cage!  AHHHHHHH. 

So then I moved everything back, opened up the run hole Ace was in, and got this female a new collar.

Then, at the same time I was checking which ones I needed to close, I was checking some of these chins to see if they were pregnant.  Not like you see some breeders palpitate them, I don't do that, but I'll stick my hand under their belly, and it does feel noticeably different if they are pregnant.  And they hop around but you try to get a quick little feel and see, and fingers crossed for some of these girls. 

Then I came across one that was matted.   And my chins all have regular dust baths, so it's worth mentioning that matting isn't always the result of bad care.  Sometimes they just mat.  So I spent time working those mats out of her fur before I was able to move on.

Then I found a female who I'd brought in a bit ago as a new breeder, and never opened up her run hole.  Oops!  Opened that.

Then I found some babies!!  Who-hoo!!  One of Bentley's females (standard x standard pairing) had four, get that, FOUR babies!  Ok, that itself I'm not that happy with, because that's quite hard on the mom to raise that many, if she even can raise that many, but this was a few days ago now, and so far, so good!  All standards, though that's all you could get out of this pairing, and they all look good!  And then Marty (med ebony) and one of his dark ebony females also had two babies, a dark ebony and a medium ebony.  Also looking good, very happy with them as well.

the quads with mom

And then because someone made a comment the other day on the phone, asking what a curly looked like...

...they can be more or less curly,  but this gives you an idea...

And then one last thing, before I go.  Let me remind you all, that this is a rescue.  When you adopt a chinchilla, you fill out and sign the adoption contract, which states, among other things, that if you need to return the chinchilla, you will do so without return of money.  Which also means, we're not doing anything like a trade!  I can't believe I even have to say that.  But let me tell you -- I had someone message me yesterday asking if one of the baby chins was still available, one of the ones that was $200 on sale.  I told them yeah, and they said they had adopted a pair of chins from me, and now they weren't getting along so well, and now they thought that it would be better to just have one.  So they wanted to know, could they surrender the pair and get the baby instead?  I told them, sure they could... but they'd have to pay for the baby.  Look, here's the thing.  It doesn't matter that the pair they adopted, they paid $200 for.  That doesn't make any difference, we're not swapping chins.  Try going to the humane society, and tell them, you adopted a dog awhile back, but it's not working out... so you want to bring it back, and just swap it for another one.  They will look at you like you've lost your mind.  And rightfully so.  That's just not how it works.

And that's all for today... til next time... which hopefully will be sooner than it has been lately....

Location, location, location....and calls...and Christmas update.

I know my last post talked about people from way-too-far-away wanting to adopt...and I know we touch on that all the time... but it's because... so many people don't even bother to check!

Now, in all fairness, I do realize that if you search for chinchillas and some state, your first posts will be chinchillas from that state (if there are chinchillas in that state).  But once you run out of chinchilla listings from that state, google will show you results from wherever in the world.  So, like for example, I had someone email me about this one chinchilla, asking if we still had her available.  Sure do.  They wanted pics, so I sent pics.  Then they ask, where are we located.  Hammond, IN.  Oh, well they're in California. 

Someone asked me the other day how busy the phones are.  Well.. it's my own cell phone, so it is busy at times, and it isn't.  Mostly, perhaps sadly, it's people calling for the rescue.  Not too many people call just to talk to me (haha?).  But let me give you some examples.

Last night (too late for me to call them back by the time I noticed... because I was at dog class), I got a call from someone who adopted and their niece (who came with) had been playing with Summer and wanted to know if she was for adoption.  Called them back, said, sorry, no, but gave them the number for Eco Exotics (630-395-0588 for those that want it), and they usually have prairie dogs in the spring.

Also had a call last night from a guy, Chad, who was wanting his chins to come into the rescue.  Said he was in Ohio and wanted to know if I knew of other rescues if we couldn't take them in.  I told him, he'd have to bring cages because our cages are full at the moment, but if he was looking for a rescue closer to him he might try Heartland, and gave him their number.

Got a call today from someone who saw the website and wanted to come adopt a chin.  We set up an appointment, they came by and took home our blue diamond along with a cage and all supplies.  Yay.

Then had a call today from someone else with two outside rabbits that they wanted to rehome.  They're way up north so they weren't so sure about making the drive up here and were waiting to hear back from some other people, so she's going to see what happens with that before she officially gets back to me as far as whether she wants to come by with them or not.

Then got an email and a phone call from someone who is being transferred out of country for their job and needs their chin to come into the rescue.  Called them back, didn't get them, so I left a message.  Ended up emailing them back when I got home because I still hadn't heard back and they had mentioned they could come tomorrow (Saturday).  So I got in touch with them and now they're coming by tomorrow.

And lastly, before I go to bed... for the local people who read this, you probably know around Christmas we have our rescue Christmas tree at Hearts in Motion with ornaments for sale.... this year we sold $36 worth of ornaments!  For everyone who purchased one, thank you for your generosity!  And thank you to my mom for checking on the tree and adding ornaments when needed.  The tree will be back up next year for anyone who wants to support the rescue and get some ornaments to add to their own tree. 

Some Updates

So, I'm working on listing all the chins.  So far, so good.  What I've been running into a lot lately is this -- someone calls / texts / emails and tells me they want a specific chin and asks if I can get it.  So I check, and I can get one in, and then they ask, oh do I have another chin, different color available too?  So I send them pics of that one.  So then they ask, oh well what about this one too?  And this one?  So they effectively are asking about four chins.  They have pics of all four chins, but I don't know if they're planning on getting one chin, or two, or three, or four... or none (which is actually, usually, how it goes).  Here's the thing.  When I say I will hold a chin for a week without a deposit -- that is meant to be ONE chin.  That you are intending to adopt when you get here.  I will not hold four, for an unknown amount of time, so you can hem and haw and take 3 weeks to decide, well do you really want to get that many now, or should you wait, or...????  If you specifically ask me to get in a chin for you and I actually do this, that one will stay unlisted until you actually tell me you don't want it (well, within reason).  But the other chins, if you haven't specifically said you're for sure getting them... they're gonna get listed when they're ready.  It's nothing against anyone specifically.  I'd personally love if you all went home with four chins (and so would the rescue account).  But here's the thing -- the average person that tells me they want to get multiple chins and asks for the rare colors and then can't decide... they usually don't adopt... wait for it... anything!  The current person I'm thinking of is asking about four chins... for a total of... after multi-chin discounts... $800.  Pardon me for thinking they're not going to come through, but... if the past is any indication... they will never adopt. 

Now, if you really want to adopt four chins and all and plan to come by, you can put down a deposit.  That will hold the chins, and you will not hear me say a word about you not showing up.  But here's the thing.  The average person that contacts me about a ton of chins that are rare colors like this refuses to put down a deposit and can never find time to make the trip.  But if you are serious and show me you're serious with a deposit, by all means.  So far, I'm still waiting to see it happen though.

Moving along.  Petfinder is an animal listing website.  That's it.  I had someone in Canada message me today about wanting chins shipped to them.  Chins they found listed on petfinder from my rescue.  I emailed back, sorry, we don't ship, we like to meet the adopters in person.  So they emailed back asking if Petfinder could ship them.  Petfinder doesn't ship.  I suppose maybe people don't understand what Petfinder is, but really, it's just a website where rescues can list animals so the rest of the world sees that they're available.  They have tools that may be useful for some rescues (dog and cat ones) as well, but for the general public... that's it. 

Still want to ship the chinchilla?  I've told countless people to look into u-ship.  It's where you list, ok you want a chinchilla shipped from Indiana to some other state and people will bid and say ok they'll do it for this much.  You pay them, and they come pick it up and take it to you.  We've had it done once, one of our chins is in California.  It worked just fine.  But here's the thing -- I tell people to look into that... oh that's too much work.  Well, that's why we don't ship -- on this end, it's too much work to get the vet certificate, get a carrier that the airlines approve of, get to the airport, and so on.  I'd imagine the cost is probably about the same.  I think people think, though, that it's going to be like $30 to ship the chin to them, or something like that.  Not the $200+ (not including carrier, vet bill, and so on) just for the airline fee.   And it's not going to come to their door either -- they have to go to the airport to pick it up.  It's a tad bit more complicated than buying something from amazon and having it show up on your door.

Moving along again -- we are full!  Yes, again.  Just about every cage that can have a chinchilla in it, does.  And I have like four voicemails asking if I can take in people's chins.  If we're absolutely full and for some reason you cannot wait to bring in your chin, I will ask that you bring the cage with.  If that's not a possibility, then you simply will need to wait for us to adopt out some, so we have room for yours.  Simple as that.  I know no one has patience nowadays, but I don't have 4000 spare cages, and even if I did... I still have to clean them.  It's hard enough to keep up with as many cages as are currently here, much less if I start adding temporary cages everywhere, so that's why I have to limit it when I do.  Now, I'm going to go add the paragraph on the rescue page noting that we're full and such and then call back those voicemails.... 

Grooming & Chin Care

I've lately heard several potential adopters ask if chins really need a dust bath. The short answer is yes, they do.

Partially because it keeps their fur pretty and not greasy, but also because when not dusted, their fur tends to get matted easier.

Case in point.  Chilly was surrendered yesterday.  Just picking him up you could feel all the hard matts.  They said that they hadn't given him a dust bath in a few months.  So, out came the show combs... and I think he looks much better.

Chilly before:

Chilly after:

He had so many matts that had to be pulled out -- that's why he still looks rough and uneven.  Grooming a chin like this to get them and their fur back to a healthy state is much different than grooming a show chin, for the purpose of making them pretty-er.   It'll grow back though, with lots of dust baths and handling to try and make to keep those matts at bay.

I could make a second chin out of this amount of fur and matts!  For size reference, that's the bottom of a package of mason jars.

I bet  he feels much better!

The people who dropped him off were very nice people, but said they just didn't have time for him anymore.  The owner was going to college (I believe) and the parents ... can't remember if they didn't have time or didn't want to care for him...  but I wish people would call (whether here or somewhere else) before it gets this bad. 

I left the cage in the garage because it could probably used powerwashed or at least soaked in a tub of water to loosen all the gunk.  They said, too cold outside to wash it (uh-huh... it was 60 almost every day up until last week) and they didn't have a tub to soak it in.  Not sure I'd soak a cage in my bathtub, but in the winter, when I get in used cages, I find a way to get them clean and looking great.  If I can do it without a utility sink, spray bottles, and scrubbies..

Anyway.  I didn't take a picture of the cage, but I'll attach this next picture... use this to think about what the cage much look like.... because you don't need some fancy equipment or outside hose to clean a food dish! 

Oh and here's one of Chilly in one of my rescue cages.

 
Alrighty well that's it for now, I gotta go accomplish some stuff.

Happy New Year! ... some updates

I know, I know, and I do mean, I know... believe me, some of you are super good at reminding me that there have been no blog posts lately.  That's going to get better! 

Partially because, as you may have noticed, the webstore has been closed and will likely be closed for much of January.  There's a note on the Supplies for Sale page, and the webstore link on the navbar has gone bye-bye.  Naturally, some people will still figure out the link to the webstore and will still order... and the link is elsewhere on the website.  Some people have a direct link saved in their favorites, not their fault... others have told me over the years they've figured it out so they can "get around" the closed webstore.  Here's the thing.  I love you all and appreciate your orders... but it's still only me doing 98% of everything here.  Maybe you met Joel, who helps me clean.  Or maybe you've run into Mitchell and Liz, who have been helping out lately.  I appreciate them more than anyone could possibly know, but the other 98%... still me.  And that's fine, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  I just have had some people patiently waiting for their orders, and I would like to get those out... but every time I see another one come in, especially lately when I have so many around the holidays, I've been having an "ugh" moment.  Add that to the 4" stack of paperwork on my desk that needs to be dealt with, and the books that need to be finalized for the year, and the orders that need to be finished so I can refund whatever excess shipping there is... and you can see why the store needed to be closed for at least a little bit.  I'm pretty sure I had it open all of 2015, which I feel was awesome, as it was closed much of 2014.  I do need a bit of time as things have gotten busier, but it will be back open soon... and if you just can't wait, and find yourself a link to the webstore and order something... I will personally add it to the back of the order list, and will get to it sometime...

Anyway.  Moving along onto new stuff.  We had some new rescues come in.  Chappie, Chippie, Little Chappie, Little Chippie, and Legume.  The non "little" versions are the parents, a black velvet and standard grey, and the little ones are the daughters... a black velvet and a standard grey.  They came in because the owners said that once the female had the babies, she turned bitchy and started spraying.  Then, apparently, the male started biting.  The babies they said are fine.  I was told that the male couldn't be separated from the female or else he'd bite... but as these are rescue chins and, according to the previous owners, sound like they could take some effort to get adopted, I told them they would be separated.  And I did, with no bites, no sprays, no nothing.  Yay for that.  We shall see how things continue to go. 

Legume (pronounced Lay-goom... is that really how you pronounce it?  That's not how I've ever pronounced it) is a large white rabbit... with eyeliner and some black specks on her.  Everyone loves her, she's super sweet.  They brought her by, because... she was eating too much and I think the thought was they couldn't afford it any longer?  The same people brought in the four chins and the rabbit, and they all seem well cared for, just needing to find new homes.  Legume does eat quite a bit... but she's at least a 5-7 pound rabbit, if not larger... they do that.  So she'll just eat us out of house and home until she finds her new one.  :)

We have another chin coming in today.  Don't know much about it other than that it was the daughter's chin, she went to college (I think? maybe she's in high school... same difference) and now doesn't have time.  Which is sort of one of those things, I hear that and want to send a sideways glance into the chin room... they don't have time for one, but I can manage to care for how many?  Anyway, we get to meet this chin today at 3 pm.

But anyway.... the topic of water bottles has come up.  We already are DONE cleaning water bottles for January!  Who-hoo!!  Water bottles are cleaned once a month.  If they start looking grimy or if a chin is sick (or other such circumstances), they'll be changed out more often, but for the majority of chins, they get a new water bottle once a month.  Most chins are on the glass ryerson bottles, so they're not a good breeding ground for bacteria or anything of that nature.  They stay reasonably clean.  The reason we only change once a month?  I counted yesterday... some of the cages (especially like the rabbit and guinea pig ones) have multiple bottles, but most just have the one... we have 88 bottles in use right now.  Just keeping a few spares washed (among everything else that needs to be done) can prove to be a task... much less having that many spares.

Let's see, what else.  For anyone worried about the pigeons in the small cage, they have been upgraded to a 40"+ cage.  They are going outside at some point, but since we made a jump from the 60s to the 20s in about a week, I'm not sure now's quite the time.  But they have been upgraded to a larger cage and water bowls hanging off the sides of their cage (to keep more of the shavings out.. they still get some in).

Oh!  We adopted out Carter!  He went home to someone who had been checking our website and saw that he was available.  So now we just have the two rabbits (Legume and BunnyLove) and all the chins.  The prairie dogs Spoon & Winnie (if you happened to stop by and see them in the short time they were here), went home to a family that has several of our chins and a prairie dog of their own.  

Ok, two more things before I get back to work.  First, shipping costs.  In general, the shopping cart is set high.  I would rather refund shipping than eat the costs when it doesn't cover shipping.  For example, I have an order going out tomorrow for a jar of supplement.  The jar is $8.50, shipping came out to $7.50.  This person is in California, so actual shipping?  $9.97.  Yikes.  I paid it and I'll ship it and just eat the cost.  But here's the thing... that $2.47 that I just lost on shipping?  By the time I pay for the jar, and pay for the herbs that go in it... I'm probably paying this person to take the jar.  We just don't make that much money on this stuff that we sell.  I would LOVE to make $2.50 on an $8.50 item, but that's just not how it works... and of course, that's not counting the box, packaging materials, tape.  None of which is expensive -- I usually add ~ $0.75 to each order to cover these costs -- but I do still need to somehow pay for them.  So more like a loss of $3.22 just on shipping, plus cost of everything that went into it, and my time, and so on.  So, starting 2016 (and I added this in one of the policy notes to the webstore), if the actual shipping comes out higher than the charged shipping, people will have a choice to either paypal additional monies over to cover the cost, or they can get their order refunded.  This doesn't happen often, maybe a few times a year, but I need to make sure this gets addressed and this is how we're going to deal with it.


And lastly, with the shop.  The wood shop is in my basement, next to the chin room.  I had someone text the other night at like 2 am, wanting to come later that day (say, 7 am) to get a chin and cage and everything.  Ok, here's the thing.  Again, I appreciate the business, the orders, I really do.  However, Hammond has a noise ordinance.  Past a certain time at night and before a certain time in the morning, you can't make loud noise.  Most of the neighbors here are wonderful, but the few pricks ruin it for everyone and they will report you.  I've never been reported, but my one neighbor has been multiple times, before they moved.  I'm not going to upset the neighbors because I appreciate them when everyone goes to the wrong house and they kindly point them to the correct house... I don't need them to tell my people to get lost because I keep them up all night.  Now, this of course is not to say that I have never cut wood or power sanded or something when it's late (*looks around innocently*).  I try to keep it to an absolute minimum... say, if I forgot someone's coming for their order and realized late at night, they're coming first thing in the morning.  But I won't abuse it for the people who absolutely cannot wait another hour or two, or day or two, to come get their chins.  If this has been you, you know I'm not mean about it or anything like that, I'll just come out and say, hey, noise ordinance, I'm not going to cut this late at night and I can't do it at 6 am either, so either come later in the day, or I can see if maybe I have a piece of wood already cut that might work for you, or something.  But please don't get offended when I say that I won't cut 20 shelves for you at 11 pm.  It's nothing against you.  I just want to continue to do this in the future, and the best way to do so is to keep the peace with the neighbors.  And whichever ones reported my neighbor are still out there... so let's all keep the peace.

Happy New Year! 

Breeding

Had someone ask the other day about breeding.  Well, actually, happens all the time, but the other day was notable, because they actually asked reasonable questions that would help determine if they wanted to breed.

I believe they decided against it.

But let me share with you just one kind of interesting tidbit on why it's not your get-rich-quick scheme, and it actually is work.

One of my runs is a mosaic male, and he has three standard females.  I got them back sometime in the summer, and they've been in breeding.  Maybe a week or two ago, one of his females littered.  Two babies.  All standard grey. 

For those that don't know, a mosaic x grey pairing should result in about 50% white / 50% grey babies.  Pay attention, this will be important later.

So she has her two babies.  Maybe a week later, another of his females has babies.  Three of them, all standard grey.  So out of 5 babies... all grey... at least two should have been white.  But nope, all five, standard grey.

Now here's where the money part comes in... guess what color flies off the shelves?  I'll give you a hint, it's not grey.  So all those people who would think, ok they stuck these pairings together, going to get lots of white babies to sell for lots of $$$, the world works against you sometimes.

So, the chin that has three babies, one of hers gets out.  The feeder was empty, and the baby literally crawled up the inside of the feeder and out of the cage.  Caught him and put him back.  Filled the feeder up so this can't happen again.  Few days later, I have people here, and they tell me something small ran across the floor, maybe a baby chinchilla.  Sure as shit, same one.  We catch him, put him back.  Turns out, that cage they're in has one small section of wire that's missing a crossbar... yep, the turd got out from there.  So I put more wire on top of that and now he's secure. 

And then a day or so later, one of the three babies die.  Which of course, is sad, but statistically, chinchilla mortality is right around 20-25%, so that's about right, for 1 in 5 to die. 

So even for the person considering that they were going to have 5 standard babies to sell, now it's down to four.  And mind you, again, they're standards.  I love me some standard greys, and one of my customers the other day said something I really liked -- that the standard grey is the "classic" color (haha), I like how he put it -- but pet people often want something unusual.  I'm actually surprised how many violets and whites I've found homes for this year.... but not nearly so many standards.

Some people want the standards because, in general, they tend to be less expensive.  But the grand majority of phone calls I get start out something like, "I want a chinchilla... but do you have something other than grey... I'd like to get an unusual one..."  Just saying, those standards will have a hard time moving.

Colors & Combos and Whatnot

Ok so I know on my ads that it says something like, if we don't have what you're looking for, let us know and we'll see if we can get it.

And often, we can get it something specific.

But I should note, these requests need to be in the realm of possibilities as far as chinchilla genetics.

For example.  Let me share some basics about the color beige, as far as genetics.  The beige gene, in any form, comes with red eyes.

They can be jellybean red, like this...

Or they can be ruby, like this...

...but regardless, they're red.  The beige gene comes with red eyes.  And just so we're all on the same page, that means any color with the beige gene.  Beige comes in two main types, homo (lighter more champagne-y color) and hetero (darker beige).  Tan chinchillas also have a beige gene.  The lighter ones look like a regular beige, where the beige color wraps around the belly... and they extend out to dark tans, which look more brown / chocolate-y in color.  But tans are also beiges, they are beige + ebony gene.  Pink whites, sometimes called beige mosaics, also have a beige gene.  They have beige + white gene.  So, all of these colors are going to have red eyes, which again, can vary from jellybean red to dark ruby red.

... and the point of all of this is that no matter how much you want it, I can't get in a beige / tan / pink white... with black eyes.  It's just not in the realm of possibilities, because genetically, those chins are going to have red eyes. 

Now, I can take pictures to minimize this.  See the tan pictured up above?  If I took pictures with a flash, her eyes would look more red.  In real life, they look like the pic -- but if I flash the pictures, this chin will look completely different.  So even if you think I've somehow come up with a tan with non-red eyes... I haven't.  I've just learned over the years that the glaring red eyes turn people off, and since the eyes often are not nearly so glaringly red in real life... I can take pics to minimize them.

One more color that people have been having fun with lately are the mosaics.  I think of the term mosaic as referring to an actual mosaic, like a white with some grey chinchilla.  But really, just about every color can have a mosaic.  All it is is adding the white gene to an existing color.  So, there is such thing as a beige mosaic (pink white), sapphire mosaic (white sapphire), violet mosaic (white violet), and so on.  They all have varying degrees of the original color on their body, but the base color is white, for mosaics. 

I should note, these are not paint by number chins.  I  have had quite a few people lately who have said, oh well, they'd like one with a white nose.  Oooh but a dark face.  Oh wait, can it have a blaze up the face?  Oh and maybe like a really dark spot somewhere on it's body?  As neat as it would be to custom-color a chin.... again, it's not realistic. 

And neither is getting super stark differentiation between body colors.   Unlike guinea pigs, where you can see red, and then super stark demarcation line, and then black... you don't see that very often in chins.  They tend to have more of a blended look.  Because of that, when you do see one with very stark demarcation between colors, everyone goes OOOOOOOOOH PRETTYYYY.  Like this:

...you may recognize her as Owl, one of my chins.  If I had a penny for every time someone said, oh well when she has a baby that looks like her, I want it... I could have retired years ago.  It's unusual.  It's a fluke, and it doesn't reproduce itself.  She's had I think three babies here so far.  I'd have to check my herd book, to be certain, but they've all been just your average chin.  The current one is here, growing out for show, and he's just your average pink white.  Mostly white, has a light beige spot on his rump.  But the point is... none of them have looked like her, or even had super unusual coloring... you just get what you get. 

Again, all this said, someone looking for a blazed mosaic... I can probably find that.  Someone looking for a silver mosaic, I can find that.  But not your blazed, spotted, white nosed, zebra striped chin... if it exists, I probably can't find it....