On a very special day sometime in 2006 my baby chinchilla Chef was born, it must have been fate that brought us together, well maybe not initially because instead of going home with me he went home with a woman named Karri. Karri had gone to Petsmart and saw a little cutie sitting in a cage and couldn’t resist a 56 gram baby chinchilla.
Chinchillas are such unique animals with such special needs they are highly social, need tons of things to chew on, they can’t get wet, they need a tall cage, and can’t survive with temperatures over 76 degrees fahrenheit. After picking out the perfect chinchilla Karri bought him a two and half foot cage with ledges for him to climb on and a wheel for him to run on. Over the years Karri had established an in-home animal rescue, she had over twenty dogs and over thirty cats, little Chef had a lot to compete with. After a year of having him a highly social Chef wanted a friend being a nocturnal animal Chef would bark constantly in the night looking for a companion.
Noticing his distress Karri went out and bought him a female friend, Dora. Dora the chinchilla didn’t get that year that Chef had to socialize with people, making her nippy and fiercely afraid of dogs. Dora being smarter than Chef was able to figure out how to jump out of their cage, once she figured it out Chef wasn’t far behind. The chinchillas were chased by the dogs and occasionally had to be rescued from the pool, considering their ribs were as fragile as toothpicks this wasn’t the best situation. Acquiring more and more animals didn’t help the situation, chinchillas live for sometimes over fifteen years Karri knew they wouldn’t last long in a situation like this.
The last straw was when Karri bought a baby bobcat, the baby bobcat was able to take on dogs more than a hundred pounds. The thought of the baby bobcat getting its hands on Chef or Dora was the scariest thing. Karri decided it was time to sell her beloved pets.
The last straw was when Karri bought a baby bobcat, the baby bobcat was able to take on dogs more than a hundred pounds. The thought of the baby bobcat getting its hands on Chef or Dora was the scariest thing. Karri decided it was time to sell her beloved pets.
Meanwhile I was ten years old, and a few months after I had put my hamster suffering with cancer down. My parents were on a vacation in Jamaica and my grandparents were watching me, my parents said I could consider getting another pet as long as it wasn’t a cat or a dog. My grandmother had brought up the possibilities of buying a chinchilla, an animal I had never even heard of. After some research I was chinchilla obsessed but such a rare animal was hard to find even in pet stores and considering we lived in Florida an animal that dies over 76 degrees isn’t ideal. But I was determined, I begged my parents into looking in to getting me one, through thousands of emails consisting of facts about chinchillas.
My parents contacted our veterinarian a day before they were getting on a flight back to Florida asking if there were any chinchillas up for adoption that they knew about. They told my parents a woman came in with two but left that afternoon and the vet was unaware if she sold them or not. My parents disappointed got on the flight, when they landed the vet frantically called saying she had found the woman’s number and the chinchillas had not been sold. My parents called and the woman (Karri) and agreed to meet at Macaroni Grill. They talked for a while and recognized that the chinchillas would have a happy life with us. My parents went to her house and took the cage and put the two chinchillas in a crate. After four years of keeping them Karri said bye to the two cuties.
My parents contacted our veterinarian a day before they were getting on a flight back to Florida asking if there were any chinchillas up for adoption that they knew about. They told my parents a woman came in with two but left that afternoon and the vet was unaware if she sold them or not. My parents disappointed got on the flight, when they landed the vet frantically called saying she had found the woman’s number and the chinchillas had not been sold. My parents called and the woman (Karri) and agreed to meet at Macaroni Grill. They talked for a while and recognized that the chinchillas would have a happy life with us. My parents went to her house and took the cage and put the two chinchillas in a crate. After four years of keeping them Karri said bye to the two cuties.
Unaware of what was happening I was watching T.V. with my grandparents when my parents walked in crate in hand with two little balls of fur. We got them out of their crate and they were able to run around with out twenty dogs chasing after them. I loved them so much but they didn’t look right their fur was matted and greasy, their plastic cage was nearly all eaten, and they looked skinny but had plenty of food to eat. The next day we took them to our vet they were examined, it turned out we had one of the rarest types of chinchilla, Chef was a black velvet. Meaning he had a rare genetic mutation, they call this gene the “lethal gene” as the side effects of this gene can kill them at a young age. Dora was half a black velvet and having this gene usually means a very unhealthy chinchilla but they appeared to be well just needing some TLC. Another discovery was that Chef was almost completely blind we knew something was weird when he ran into things when running around or we would almost poke him in the eye and he wouldn't even flinch.
After a while Dora grew very fond of me and it turned out she nipped almost everyone but me, she blossomed, she turned out to be ten times more energetic than Chef and her name just didn’t fit her. After going to Big Cat Rescue quite a few times and sponsoring a snow leopard called Cloe, I felt that both their personalities were similar.
Cloe and Chef gained weight and are very happy, besides Chef’s blindness which we just call his “clumsy side” so he doesn’t feel self-conscious. Now they have a six foot cage made out of wood and a saucer to run on, their nine years old and hopefully have nine more years to go! So that's the tale (no pun intended) of my blind chinchilla!