Kaiya and X1 went home with "Sandy Claus" today. It was a sad occasion here at the Menagerie, but we know that the two young ladies receiving them will adore them as much as we have. Sssh, but don't tell... it's a surprise for Christmas Day.

Zephyr is now fully integrated with our other girl chins in the community cage. They've snuggled with and groomed her, so they now seem like lifelong friends.

We were pleased and honored when Karen contacted us about chin-sitting for her over the holidays. Her three chinchillas have been warmly welcomed and have provided a sense of excitement and freshness to our rescue. Karen's offer to compensate for our time is greatly appreciated, as it helps to maintain the operating costs of our Menagerie.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Aria surrendered a standard chinchilla named Cielo to us two weeks ago. Aria stayed a while to chat and check out our other pets. We had lots of fun. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that her little guy is actually a girl! We've renamed her Zephyr, a more feminine name. Now we're working on getting her accustomed to our other girls in the community cage.

Dayne and Ashley were sad to give up their two chins, Hyde (standard) and Seik (mosaic). They have to travel out of the country, and can't take them along. They were relieved to find our rescue, and even more so when we offered them long-term foster care for their boys.

There's a nice family interested in adopting a pair of chins as Christmas gifts for their daughters. We have an idea which pair would be a good match. However, we have several other singles and pairs who are looking for homes. *hint hint*

With the holiday season approaching, the spirit of giving is growing. Anyone who wishes to donate to the Menagerie may do so by clicking our PayPal button on the "Donations" page. We're also in need of FerretNation cages (to consolidate space) and lots of high-quality hay.

It's been a "medical" week here at the Menagerie. During our usual cage cleaning/grooming/weighing/dusting time, Flowerbud noticed something odd about Eli's underside. We discovered our very first hair ring! A hair ring occurs on boy chins when hair gets wrapped around the shaft of his penis. As you can imagine, it can be quite painful. *cough* No pictures this time in order to spare the squeamish. Anyway, after some very careful manipulation we managed to get the offending member off. Eli is much obliged.

We also had some trouble with our little sapphire girl, Diva. New color mutations are typically weaker than other colors and this one was no exception. Even though she came from a very reputable breeder, Diva just wasn't growing out very well and had continuous "internal" issues that had our exotics vet stumped. Sadly to say, Diva passed over the Rainbow Bridge this week. She was a very sweet and spunky girl. She will be greatly missed by her chinfolk as well as her cagemates. RIP Diva.

(Note to self: Keep cage cleaning water out of reach of chinchildren!)

No worries, Miriam is perfectly fine after her little fiasco.

It's official. We are now card carrying members of the Chinchilla Mutation Breeders Association. With this membership we strive to learn more about what it takes to improve some of the newest color mutations. Our goal is to strengthen the quality of conformation, fur and size of our future generations by VERY selective matching of highest quality animals. These are the ones we hope to bring to the show ring and offer as superior animals for successful improvement of the breed. We haven't quite decided which mutation we'd like to work with though. Some of the ones we're considering are "to breed a white that doesn't turn yellow with age", focusing on the sapphire mutation, or (ideally) the goldbar or Lowe Recessive White. Before we do that, however, we really need to adopt out some more of the rescues!