Cheeky Chinchillas

Welcome to Cheeky Chinchillas

This site endeavours to provide an informative guide in caring for pet chinchillas with pages on feeding chinchillas, general care and equipment. The health page covers the more common problems and there is a helpful page on hand feeding. The general care and feeding of your pet chinchilla is very important. There are also plenty of photographs and videos of chinchillas, along with a page on the different sounds that a chinchilla can make.

This site is for owners of pet chinchillas and not a breeder's site.
However, I have included some very basic information on breeding with photographs and videos of kits.

Along with information on this site, there are fun things to see and do such as jigsaws, games, screen savers, wallpapers, puzzles and lots more. Why not send a chinchilla greeting card, cut-out the pet shop in the children's section, or make your own chinchilla calendar

Download a Desktop Chinchilla These cute chinnies will stay on your desktop for a long as you want. You can drag them, clone them and some will even make chinchilla noises when you click on them. There is always a competition running, so why not enter and try and win one of the chinchilla prizes.

The Cheeky Chinchillas Challenge helps to raise funds for Chinchilla Rescue

For those of you who are not familiar with chinchillas, they are members of the rodent familyand originate from the rocky mountain range of the Andes in South America. Discovered by Spanish explorers in the 1500's, they were named after the Chincha Indians, who through necessity to keep themselves warm and have food to eat, used them as a source of food and made clothing with their fur.

Later introduced to Europe, their soft luxurious fur became very popular and was sought after so much, it nearly caused their extinction, as literally millions of chinchillas were killed for their pelts. It is very distressing to know that it takes well over a 100 chinchillas just to make one coat!
Today, hunting the wild chinchilla is banned and they are protected by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Animals.

Mr M.F. Chapman, is responsible for the domestication of the chinchilla. He worked as a a mining engineer in Chile. In 1923, after finally getting permission from the Chilean Government, he transported 11 chinchillas to California. They bred successfully and were originally sold to fur ranches and then later sold as pets. It is more than likely that most of our pet chinchillas today are descended from Mr Chapman's original eleven.

I hope you will enjoy your visit and call again soon to see what is new.