We've matched the number of successful adoptions for July! Eight (8) chinnies have been adopted so far this month. Check out the Adoptions page to see who has sweet talked their way into the heart of a new home. It seems our incoming and outgoing numbers have been relatively consistent though. We have had 13 chins from three different homes surrendered this month for various reasons. It is quite disheartening that ALL of the females have been exposed to males and are therefore on maternity watch. Eight of the thirteen incoming chins are female. Seven are of age to have been bred. It saddens me that so many critters are placed in situations that contribute to this over abundance of pets that will need good and loving homes.

On a more happy note, several months back a nice lady donated a large parrot cage to our rescue. It was in rough shape with lots of rust that had been covered over several times with various colors of spray paint.

It would have been nearly impossible to refinish this by hand, so Whimsy did a bit of research and found Wayne, from Sand Blasting Experts (757) 494-9000  and Tom, from Fusion Powder Coating (757) 645-9396.  These guys are awesome! Wayne and Tom work side by side in a building in Chesapeake and do the most amazing work. Wayne and Tom are both very likeable guys who have shown incredible creativity and quality. AND...the fees are quite reasonable! Look at how they've transformed our new community cage!

I'd like to thank Brian for being the first to take us up on the FN for CN cage trade. We had lots of fun building new shelves and (re)decorating the Ferret Nation 142 for its new inhabitants. Here's a sneak peak of the top section of the cage complete with new style shelves and backerboards.

Gizmo and Taz also happen to be going home later this week with Brian, so they are able to check out their new digs even before going home with their new chinparent.

Which reminds me, the current out-going chin count for this month is seven (7)! Do you think we can beat last month's adoption record?

I want to express a hearty THANK YOU to Dawn for the donation of a photo box with lights and all the extras. This will allow us to take more professional looking pictures of the chins, supplies, and the jewelry sold on our sister site,  http://www.whimsystreasurebox.webs.com/ .

We have also recently received many individual monetary donations. These have allowed us to stock up on supplies, swap some worn out items with new, add bandwidth to our website and make additional hand crafted chin items for sale on our Supplies and Items page. Check out the updated page! Your purchase(s) helps support the continuation of what we do here at the Menagerie.

I also want to announce that Whimsy's Menagerie & Chinchilla Rescue is now an official affiliate ofAdopt a Pet.com. Whoo hoo! We just keep growing...and growing... and growing.

http://www.adoptapet.com/adoption_rescue/79918.html

(8/18/10)

Well, another possibly pregnant chin was surrendered on Monday. 

This makes a total of 10 females that are currently with kits or on maternity watch. We are in desperate need of baby safe cages.  Sharon Coffey, proprietor of the Chesapeake Guinea Pig Rescue (757-420-2376), was kind enough to offer us one cage that is suitable. Thanks again Sharon! You rock!

Because the chins on maternity watch have gotten so numerous, we're looking for folks who could donate or trade with us for the stackable Critter Nation brand cages. We could offer a Ferret Nation 142 brand cage, fully decked out with extra deep, chin safe wood bedding liners, plenty of hand crafted shelves and leaping ledges, two hanging 6" tubes, food bowls and water bottles. We have 2, possibly 3 of these set ups we could offer for the same number of Critter Nation cages. The best price we've found on what we're looking for can be found here: http://www.ferret.com/item/critter-nation-double-unit-with-stand-36lx24wx63h/650232/

As you can see, both cages are made by the same company and are almost identical. The Critter Nation's much smaller bar spacing makes it kit proof and better suited to our needs.  In exchange, you could get an awesome, chin friendly enclosure completely modified and chin-ready.

We've gotten a bit behind on pictures of the available chinnies. Our motivation, however, has been renewed with the addition of 6 more surrenders that came in Saturday. A mini-herd of standard grey chins arrived looking for new homes. The herd consists of super friendly mommy and daddy chin, 4 month old brother and sister, and 3 week old brother and sister. Daddy and oldest boy are housed together and get along great! But we certainly don't want any more accidental litters or inbreeding to occur. So...now mom and oldest daughter are on maternity watch while they care for the younger kits.

The surrendering family was told by the pet store people that the first two chins were both boys. *cough* Silly pet shop. Wrong!... again.