RESCUE SUPERSTAR
RESCUE SUPERSTAR
As New Zealand ’ s only chinchilla rescue , Little Chintas takes in chinchillas from all over the country , as well as other small companion animals . The chinchilla is a nocturnal rodent which is bigger than a guinea pig but smaller than a rabbit . They are not the most common pet , which means that they are often mistreated due to a lack of knowledge about their care . Morgan Healey was lucky enough to get in contact with Rebekah Marie of Little Chintas to find out more about chinchillas and talk about her Rescue Ranch .
What made you fall in love with chinchillas ? I think originally I was curious about them . I saw them for the first time in a pet store , long ago – I thought they were cute but odd , definitely not your usual pet , and decided I wanted to know more about them . The staff didn ’ t really know much about them except “ they ’ re boring , they just sleep all day ”. I wanted to know where they came from , how they ’ d come to be pets , how to look after them . Eventually I figured I knew enough to get a couple as pets . I adopted a pair of boys and , boy , did I start learning a whole lot more really fast ! The first thing I learned was that every book and website I ’ d read understated how much chinchillas really do LOVE to chew ! The second thing I learned was that no one had mentioned how malleable baby chinchillas were , and though my boys were about four to five months old when I got them they were able to squeeze themselves through the 20mm bar spacing of their cage . I caught them running loose around my room several times before I caught on to what they were doing . They were just such awesomely fun little critters , really entertaining , and sweet in a sassy , independent kind of way !
When / why did you decide to start rescuing / rehoming chinchillas ? Originally I began breeding chinchillas ; I looked up breeding guidelines and standards that breeders used overseas , mainly America , where chinchillas were first domesticated , and I started looking for chinchillas that met these standards . Over two years , and out of a couple of dozen chinchillas that I purchased from around the country , including from some of the then “ big ” breeders , I ended up with two “ breeding quality ” chinchillas . That process hit home to me the dire situation facing chinchillas in New Zealand . What started the rescue was when I responded to a Trade Me ad selling baby female chinchillas , and I bought one as a prospective breeding chinchilla . When I went to pick it up I discovered a pretty horrific situation : seven chinchillas were crammed into a small cage , roughly one metre by one metre by half a metre ; there was hardly any wood , no toys , dirty hay everywhere ; the smell was horrible , there was no litter box , the cage shelves were wire . The chins were urinating on each other , and on their food , and they didn ’ t appear to have sand baths . In the end I ended up taking all three of the baby chinchillas but the owner refused to sell the adults . I fixed the babies up , fed them up , taught them how to drink out of a water bottle , and how to sand bath , got them looking pretty , and eventually found them homes . Though the rescue did not officially open for about three years after that I do consider those three pretty beige girls to be my first rescues .
If you could tell the public one thing about chinchillas , what would it be ? If you are thinking about getting a chinchilla , the most important things to keep in mind are that : Chinchillas chew – on everything , literally everything . Nothing is safe from a chinchilla ’ s teeth ; sometimes even things 10cm away from the cage can still fall victim to a chinchilla ’ s teeth . Things like curtains , wallpaper , cables , whatever they can reach , and they have a lot longer reach than you think . It is even worse when they are out of their cage for playtime – there ’ s lots of stuff to munch on . Chinchillas poo – a lot , all the time . Thankfully their poop is little , solid , dry and oval pellets . On top of that , they like to play poop golf and flick their poop around the room with their tails . They particularly like doing this from the very top shelf of their cage , seemingly just to see how far they can flick it . They are not above flicking poop intentionally at their human either . These things are usually always under-exaggerated , or ignored , when people talk about chinchillas and their care , and they often end up being big things in some families . We have had chinchillas surrendered because they “ chewed too much ”, “ pooped all the time , like within two minutes of cleaning the cage there would be poops everywhere ”, “ chewed on my books and even ate my homework ”, etc .