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Hello!!!!

March 27th, 2011

Just a quick update to let everyone know the chinchillas are doing alright:

Winnie gets hot easier than Tubby. You can see his ears are red in this picture, but he still loves his fleece tube that I brought from the US.

I purchased a new vase for Tubby and he loves chilling in it — he sleeps and has his dust bath in it

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Airlines Don’t Like Chinchillas

February 5th, 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

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Teacher’s Pest

December 16th, 2010

Thanks to CuteOverload.com for featuring Tubby on their 14th of December 2010 blog post:

Photo was taken from here.

Tags: chinchilla, cuteoverload
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Take Over the World

October 15th, 2010

Pinky: “Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?”

Winnie Brain

The Brain (Winnie): “The same thing we do every night, Pinky—try to take over the world.”

Ok, maybe not. After all, Winnie is too cute to play the character Brain.

ps: I hope it’s not just me who still remembers Pinky & The Brain, otherwise I feel old 0_o

pps: aren’t those rolls so cute?

Tags: animal, animals, animaniacs, brain, chinchilla, chinchillas, pinky, pinky and the brain
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Oldest Chinchilla!

July 13th, 2010

I know this is quite old, but as of 2008, the oldest chinchilla on record is Bouncer, who passed away at the age of 28. According to a British rescue group dedicated to chinchillas:

Bouncer was born on 1st July 1977 on a chinchilla ranch in Nottingham owned by Mr. Sweeney. [The owner] purchased him when he was 12 months old. He has had quite an uneventful life (perhaps this helped towards him living to such an incredible age). He has moved house with [the owner] twice and coped well with the upheaval, and he has never been to the vets. This caused .. some problems with his record attempt, it was difficult to prove his age as no vets had any details of him. Bouncer is not so fast on his feet as he used to be and no longer lives up to his name but apart from a cataract he is still fairly healthy. His secret to old age could be down to the fact he has never been overly pestered or over fed, he eats his routine pellets and hay and gets a treat of a couple of raisins most days. He has always been very good natured and handles well too.

Chinchillas4life (bottom of the page)

I do believe that pets are part of your family and I do hope that Tubby & Winnie will live up to ripe old ages of 20-somethings. S0000 I guess I have to cut down on their treats & they’re going to hate me for it!

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Bored Winnie ..

May 8th, 2010

This is what he does when Winnie is bored:

Winnie bored

Winnie rests his chin & hands on the hammock & just stare into space for the longest time.

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Whisker Craziness!

April 8th, 2010

Check out those whiskers!

Tubby robe sleeve

Winnie whiskers

In memory of Baby Hamster

DH sleepy whiskers

And those long whiskers are not for looking cute only, according to Live Science:

Most rats have poor vision, but they make up for it with the “whiskers on their snouts. They use the long hairs, also called “vibrissae,” in the same way that blind people use canes. By whisking the hairs across objects the come across, rats and other rodents form mental pictures of their surroundings.

Tags: chinchilla, hamster, long whiskers, rat, rodent, vibrissae, whisker
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Happy Easter!

April 3rd, 2010

From Tubby!

Tubby easter 2010

Here’s a picture from behind the scene that didn’t make it onto the blog.

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Tubby Loves Carpet

February 28th, 2010

The chinchillas have their daily out-of-cage playtime. When I put Tubby back to his cage after his playtime was over, I discovered this:

Tubby's jizz

Yeaaaaaa … I guess Tubby got a little too excited and relieved himself on the carpet. Mind you I discovered this a little after the deed was done, so the substance was already hardened. Not to mention this is carpet! How I cleaned the mess: I poured hot water and vinegar over it, let the solution sit in the carpet for a little while, then soaked the liquid with paper towel until it’s all dry.

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