Our animals are handled daily. They are living in two separate rooms in our home. The picture below shows some of our cages (picture taken in our last home). Two doors are one cage, the cage can be separated into two if necessary but when two chins live together they have double cages (140x60x100 cm) or cages that are 100x60x100 cm, most of our chins live in really large cages.
We're trying to not have animals by themselves. Babies grow up together and resting females are together with not productive males or their own female kids.
We are not under any circumstaces putting males together. Young males are either together with a grown up female or in a cage with a barrew window to another chin (picture: upper left cage).
The chins have always hay in their cages and we exchange it every day. Most of them also have free access to chinchillapellets. They got vitamins in the water when necessary and they always have an appletwig or something similar to chew on.
We have journals for every chin and we are checking their weight at least once a week, babies daily.
When not show season they have their sandhouses in the cage all the time. We are only grooming our animals when necessary (like heavy furchanging) and some of them before shows.
The females are not having more than the most three litters per two years. We think its important that the're having periods of rest between the litters. The kids who are for sale are separated from their mother when they are 8-10 weeks old and then they are mostly sold when they are 10-14 weeks old. They are living separate from their mother for a week or two so we can see that they are eating and drinking as they should before they move to their new home.
This is 5 cages, three large and two smaller (upper left) that easily can become one large cage once the chins have gotten to know each other through the barred window.