I’m afraid I have to admit it. Out of all the animals here at the Creature Program I do have a favorite. His name is Chiba, pronounced Chee-ba, and is perhaps the world’s greatest chinchilla.
If you are not sure exactly what a chinchilla is, you can read all about them in my article, cleverly titled, All About Chinchillas.
Chiba is a five year old male who is pretty sure he is king of all animals. He gets along with his cagemate, Hobbes, just as long as Hobbes remembers who is the boss. Being king of the cage means that Chiba is the first one to eat, sample each day’s fresh water, or grab the tastiest treat. Hobbes decided quite awhile ago that it’s much easier wait ten minutes for his turn at the food dish and let Chiba have his way. At one point I took pity on Hobbes and added another food dish to the cage, so they could each have one. The result: Chiba learned how to sit covering one dish while stretching out to eat from the other! I decided Hobbes was right, it’s just easier to let Chiba have his way.
Like most kings, Chiba loves to visit crowds of people. I take a lot of different animals to various presentations and most of the critters tolerate it pretty well, generally with a passive yet annoyed sigh. Chiba, on the other hand, genuinely enjoys it. He loves the attention and believes it’s his mission in life to be the cutest animal at a kid’s birthday party. Chiba always makes sure to put an extra flourish into his dust bath performance for an audience.
I would very much like to breed Chiba, but am having a hard time finding a female chinchilla that will tolerate his need to be king. Every time I put a female with him, he violently attacks her to show his dominance. Since chinchillas are normally quite docile, the females have no idea how to deal with Chiba’s extreme aggression. I think that over time he would come to accept someone new in his cage, but none of the ladies seem willing to put up with him for that long. Apparently, true love is hard to find, even when you’re cute and cuddly.
Tags: Chiba, Chinchillas, Websites
