Chili the Chinchilla

Oh dear. The patriarch of our chinchilla family is gone. Brigid found him around 5 pm yesterday at the bottom of his cage. She called me quite upset, and I came back from my office and had to tell Joe, who was taking a nap. We don't know what happened. We got him about 6 years ago when he was fully grown, and with his girlfriend Dusty (I don't think chins take marriage vows) sired a total of 11 chins. 

Here's a picture of Chili, which i just happened to take January 17th. I had to blow it up since it was a picture of the whole back room - he's sitting in his wheel with his head poking out.

There is actually a story to this. Brigid and Joe are the real chinchilla lovers, and Chili was Joe's favorite, despite Chili's sometimes aggressive personality (he liked to bite me). Tim and Dad kind of don't give them much time. Anyway Brigid and Joe hatched a plan to get a new cage for Chili and his son Spiderman - a huge duplex cage! Meanwhile Dusty and Toby, the daughter, are living together in another cage. Long ago, our nice back room where we used to have the occasional sit-down meals, had become a chinchilla residence. The new cage was going to drop the number of chin cages in the room from three to two. While Brigid and Joe were putting together the new huge residence for the two guys, I snapped a few pictures.

Crazy, eh? you can see Joe on the left sitting on the floor, putting together the big cage.

 

Now we'll have to bury Chili in the animal burial yard at the side of the house, which we'll do later today. He spent last night in a container in the garage, in the cold so his body wouldn't deteriorate too much.

The girls will be moving into the new big residence - in fact they already have and like it. Spiderman will stay in his own residence.

We're not really sure how old Chili was - chinchilla's can live a long time - up to 15 years - but they are delicate creatures. We think he may have eaten something while out on an organized foray in the kitchen. We noticed he hadn't eaten much in the last day or so. 

When my mother was able to come to our house, the first thing she'd do is go back and look at the chins, especially Chili. Last evening I told Brigid "You know my mother is now saying 'Hey what are you doing here? I didn't expect to see you for a few years.'"

Comments

[MARIA]

The life expectancy of chinnie can be anywhere from 6 to 10 years. I had one who made it till 7; you just walk in one day and they are gone. Make sure to never give them almonds by the way--or grapes.

[June]

Sorry to hear that. He was very sweet, incredibly soft and furry... Our sincere condolences.

(Even though he bit my finger, kept me awake all night making squeaky noises, running around and chewing on the bars....his teeny droppings traversing the globe back to OZ, tucked away in our suitcases...pretty 'rank' by the time we made it home....) 😇 R.I.P.

[tom faranda]

June, i hope you and Andrew offered your suffering up. Nice that Australia got that little import ... did you use it to fertilize the garden?