Where is the best place to purchase your pet chinchilla?
Where can you get the best deal?
Where can you get the best advice and information?
Who will offer you the best after sales service?
Which supplier offers you the best chance of your pet being healthy and genetically sound?
POTENTIAL SUPPLIERS
Pet Shops
Chinchilla keeper who breeds a few pet chinchillas
Rescue Centre
Established Show or Pet breeder (5 yrs plus)
who breeds a reasonable number of
chinchillas (50+)
THE FACTS!
PET SHOPS
Do they in general have any knowledge of chinchilla keeping?
Obviously not, the only way to learn about chinchilla keeping is
to do it and that does not mean putting one in a cage on sale to
the public! You cannot learn about chinchillas from books either
most of the pet books on sale in the UK are downright rubbish!
What about the background of the chinchillas they sell?
They are in general not interested, they will offer a minimum
price to anyone offering chinchillas for sale, usually about £15.
perhaps £20. if they are desperate, and have no interest in the
background of the chinchillas, its quite unusual that they should
ask the age, very often I hear of people buying chinchillas in pet
shops at around 7, 8, or 9 weeks old, this highlights the shops
lack of knowledge, they have not even bothered to research how old
chinchillas should be before being sold!
Chinchillas of course should not be weaned until around 8 weeks
old then given at least another 4 weeks to make sure they are
eating and drinking and looking after themselves before being
sold, its quite a stressful time when they are weaned off.
Pricewise can you really expect a good deal from a middleman who
has to put his profit (Usually around 200%) on top of the
price he pays to a supplier? We wont go into cage and
equipment prices here, I would just say quite often cages are
offered by pet shops that are totally unsuitable for chinchillas.
If you are lucky you may find a pet shop that can show you how to
sex chinchillas correctly!
CHINCHILLA KEEPER WHO BREEDS A SMALL NUMBER OF PET CHINCHILLAS
Usually enthusiastic pet keepers do over time (at least 5 years)
build up a certain amount of knowledge on chinchilla husbandry.
The problem is that unless they keep a reasonable number of
animals their capacity for learning about genetic and other
problems is limited. They are also restricted in their selection
of future breeding stock by the limited amount of offspring
produced.
RESCUE CENTRES
First a word about rescue centres, many I am sure are set up with
the correct intentions and the welfare of animals put as a first
priority but at least as many are set up by small breeders when
they realize the profit potential and in many cases free
advertising thrown in!------but regardless of all that we are
looking for the best place to buy your pet chinchilla!
Rescue centres are no different than pet shops in that in the
majority of cases they have no idea of the background of the
animals, now I know that these chinchillas still need looking
after but I have seen too many times the heartbreak caused by
purchasing a chinchilla from one of these rescue centres and
having it die in great pain from teeth problems within a couple of
years.
Please note; Above by no means applies to all rescue centres,
there are a number of genuine rescue centres with a good knowledge
of chinchillas who actually advise against breeding with stock
from themselves due to uncertainty about the background of the
animals.
ESTABLISHED SHOW OR PET BREEDER
The established breeder of large numbers (50+) of chinchillas,
whether for pet or show, is in the enviable position of having
enough stock and producing enough offspring to be able to select
his future breeding stock from his healthiest animals.
The show or exhibition breeder is usually especially careful about
choosing his future breeding stock, it can take many years of hard
work to produce top quality show animals on a regular basis, the
last thing such a breeder wants is to have this work wasted by the
appearance of genetic health problems. When I first started
breeding in 1988 there were many such problems
with my original breeding stock---teeth problems---breeding
problems---temperament problems, all these have been
selected against to a negligable level---but not totally
eliminated, selection against defects is an ongoing task
With the correct care you should own a chinchilla for many years, surely its worth the effort of purchasing from a source where you can expect your chinchilla to have a long and trouble free life!
Its down to you to make the final decision!
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