Bio-Air. Wonderful stuff, Bio-Air. It’s a very powerful and effective essential oil based air freshener. It contains eucalyptus, peppermint, camphor, and menthol. Used very sparingly after cleaning out the chin room it fills the room with a minty aroma for hours. It’s also good for putting under the cage of any chins with respiratory infections or colds (just a tiny drop on the newspaper but only if the chins cannot reach it) to aid with breathing and clear the nasal passages etc.

Sounds like a sales pitch doesn’t it? I don’t mean it to but this stuff is great – Debbie recommended it some time last year and now I use it at least once a week to make the chin room smell clean and fresh. It’s powerful and it lasts for ages – and the chins seem to like it.

So …….. on to the story. I keep the trigger spray down by the sink in the kitchen (it’s also good for eliminating cooking smells like bacon) but somehow the bottle was balanced on a bottle of fabric softener. When I came home on Monday I could smell the tell-tale peppermint aroma but could not initially work out where it was coming from. Talie and I were blaming each other for using it but neither of us did. Odd. Definitely odd – because we could both smell it. Panic! Had I left it in the chins’ room and it had been knocked over? Use too much of the stuff and it makes your eyes water for a while – I know this because I used it in the car once a little over-enthusiastically – and needed to drive around for 3 days with the windows down!

The smell seemed to be coming from the kitchen (we deduced this by sniffing loudly – very scientific) and I suddenly saw the bottom of the bottle – it was upside down. Now this stuff is not cheap and I was about to start bemoaning my financial loss (it’s expensive to buy but lasts for ages – unless you spill it!) when I realised that the contents of the bottle were now soaked into an old piece of towel which I used for the chins. Oh well, it must be useful as an air freshener in it’s own right now – a bit like the fabric wicks you find in those liquid air fresheners. I deposited the cloth in the chin room by the air purifier and immediately the room was filled with the scent of menthol, camphor, peppermint, and eucalyptus. It took me ages to wash the minty smell from my hands too.

Its now 2 days later and the chins still have a “hint of minty freshness”. It’s wonderful. I wonder how long it will last?

The kits are beginning to popcorn hop like little furry fleas. I love it when they do that. They are all gaining weight, even the smallest female, and Leila’s big kits are begining to mimic their mother by tasting pellets and hay. One of them was looking particulalry smug earlier with a tiny piece of shredded wheat in his/her mouth.

Good grief! How time flies. Tonka (aka Fingerbobs) is a year old today.

He celebrated his first birthday with an extra mini shredded wheat and a good old tickle under the chin. The shredded wheat went down well; the tickling did not. “Mr Independent” has become a stroppy adult, even more so since he lives with Gracie. Oh yes, he’s quite protective of his Mrs. Tickling, it seems, is not dignified for a chinchilla in his position – I had my hand firmly shoved aside and he proceeded to nibble me in disgust. Gracie just watched from her dust bath.

Today was also marked by the sad passing of dear Maya. Recently she had begun to show the earliest signs of discomfort when she was eating and would only take the syringe food. Debbie and I discussed her future and we both agreed that the time was right for her to be given a dignified, peaceful, and pain free rest.

I took her to see Jade after giving her one last syringe feed – she went in her beloved cozy bed, warm and with a full tummy. Just as I promised.

Putting any animal to sleep is heartbreaking but putting a spirited one to sleep is even more heart-wrenching. Maya had such a zest for life but her body (her teeth in this case) betrayed her. I popped her in the anaesthetic box still tucked up in her bed and bless her she just sat there…. and sat there ….. and stubbornly sat there! She fought the anaesthetic. There was no struggling, just an iron-willed defiance as she sat in her bed. For a few moments I agonized over whether I was doing the right thing for her. I almost asked Jade to stop – just for a split second – but I looked at Maya’s little face and I just could not put her through any more. To do so would have been incredibly selfish.

In some respects it was the hardest euthanasia I have participated in – others were excruciating in different ways but Maya; dear, stubborn, feisty, precious and amazing Maya had made me question my decision. No other chinchilla has ever made me do that – regretted having to do it because the loss is painful, yes but question the decision? No. When I took the emotion out of it and looked at the situation from a purely clinical viewpoint I knew it was the right decision.  Maya had rocked my confidence – even though, in my heart of hearts I knew I was doing the right thing for her.

Jade was brilliant – she has carried out so many euthanasias for me over the last 3 years or so and she knows me very well. When Maya was gone she felt Maya’s bottom jaw and simply said “1 million percent right decision”. In that moment it was one simple sentence which meant so much.

I brought Maya home, now forever sleeping in her beloved bed – she will be buried in The Manor alongside all the other precious little souls. I should imagine chinny heaven is in for a wake-up call.

Sleep well, Maya – I hope you’re causing chaos wherever you are!

Chinchillas have become popular as pets over the last few years. Whilst some chins have always been sold as pets, the full implementation (January 2003) of the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000 meant that it was illegal to keep animals for the production of fur. Since then, the chinchilla “industry” in the UK has been geared solely towards pet keeping.

Since the first UK chinchilla forum appeared in 2002 the number of members using such forums has rocketed. Along with the positive aspects – better chinchilla husbandry (some of the original pet books contain erroneous information), support for people when going through challenging times with their chins, and the availability of like-minded people for networking – the forums have probably contributed to the increased number of chinchillas available and also to the number of unwanted chinchillas around the UK.

Chinchilla kits are incredibly endearing. They are born fully furred, precocious, and ready to go. They are appealing and as such it has become popular to try and breed them – with little or no knowledge of the potential pitfalls involved or the consequences. Forums have made it much easier to obtain chinchillas of both sexes or even as pairs and the resulting over breeding of pet or poor quality chinchillas is becoming more and more apparent.

Now I’m not saying forums are a bad thing – I cannot say that, since I moderate on 2 and administrate another with a couple of friends – but they can give a false picture of chinchilla breeding; making it appear lucrative (the price asked for some chins), and relatively easy. Some people never read the opposite side of the story – females that die in labour, kits that are still born or have some deformity or die after a couple of days, hand rearing 24/7 for weeks, prolapses …………. the list of potential problems is a long one.

What I am suggesting is that it is the responsibility of the forums to educate and provide support but to do it in such a way that people are discouraged from indiscriminate breeding. Indiscriminate breeding is the key phrase here. This is not easy – there is a balance between giving advice and being supportive when things go wrong and being judgmental. The problem is that forums are often targeted by numpties intent on trolling for attention or winding people up for fun.

That gets very tiring – trying to sort the genuine people asking for help and/or information and the trolls, intent on causing chaos. I don’t like trolls. I don’t like numpties. I don’t like people who lie from one forum to the next, one thread or post to the next and then get stroppy when they are caught out – hello? If you’re going to use the forums (which are perused by the same people in general) then for goodness sake learn to lie better! If you can’t get the story straight or the story changes from forum to forum you’re going to be found out and somone will point it out – quite often by me!