Airlines Don’t Like Chinchillas

5th February 2011

Gong xi fa chai! I’ve been enjoying this Chinese New Year just because it’s the year of the golden rabbits and I see lots of cute rabbit paraphernalia everywhere!

Going back to 2 months ago, when I was planning to move from the US to SEA, I did not know that the logistics of moving the chinchillas would be so troublesome. Here are some of the things that I learned while trying to arrange travel plans for the chinchillas:

  • No US domestic airlines would allow chinchillas fly inside the cabin, but some do allow hamsters to fly inside the cabin.
  • No US domestic airlines would accept chinchillas as rodents (which hamsters are), so they would either have to be checked in or fly in a separate cargo plane.
  • No airlines would accept metal cages, only plastic cages.
  • Tubby can do some real damage to plastic cages when he’s super bored.
  • Chinchillas surprisingly do well in long-haul flights.
  • SQ only accept animals through pet agents.
  • Cathay is highly recommended for pet travel.
  • Animal travel is expensive, but worth it.

Here is a summary of all the traveling that the chinchillas did:

  • Because no US domestic airlines would allow chinchillas fly inside the cabin, I had no choice but to have the chinchillas fly separately in a cargo plane. Luckily I know someone in the destination city who was able to pick them up from the cargo area.
  • Considering that the chinchillas spent 6 hours (including 1 stopover) flying from MI to CA, once they arrived in CA they were surprisingly perky. I purposefully stayed the night in CA instead of flying to SEA on the same day so that the chinchillas at least had a night to settle down.
  • Once arriving in SEA, the cargo handlers didn’t know what they were doing, so the chinchillas sat out in a warehouse, with no AC, for 45 minutes!!! The instant I arrived at the cargo area, the chinchillas looked super hot, but they survived.

Now the chinchillas live in a shared 2-story cage, Tubby is upstairs & Winnie is downstairs. They stay in a room which has the AC turned on for about 12 hours a day. At first they were jetlagged (meaning that they would be awake during daytime and asleep during nightime), but now they’re back to being fully nocturnal.

Overall, I’m just glad they’re safe and adapting well :-)

Posted in Chinchilla adventure | Comments (1)

One Response to “Airlines Don’t Like Chinchillas”

  1. Tom Hardy Says:
    March 13th, 2011 at 5:38 am

    I’m so sorry to hear that you had so much trouble with moving your chinchillas, but it is to be expected – they are not frequent flyers or anything like that…

    The most important thing is they are safe now :)

    For all of you who want to find more info about keeping and caring for chinchillas and other small animals visit:

    http://www.unusualpets.org

    Cheers!

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