Welcome

Hello and Welcome to Dusty Side Up Chinchillas (FKA: Dirty South Chinchillas) a site that is dedicated in trying our best in keeping the most up to date information on caring for your chinchilla.
Here you will find pages of information containing basic care for Chinchillas as well as Health and Diet. You will also find various links to other breeders and sites that we feel are helpful.
The information on our site as been put together by various research through online and books and if you feel there is a conflict with any information provided on our site, please feel free to contact us and we will be glad to discuss the matter further.
All contents on this site, including text and images (except the template and anatomy photos)are the sole property of Dusty Side Up Chinchillas and may NOT be reprinted or redistributed throughout other sites and forums as well as copying/pasting into emails without permission from us.

About Us

I began my new found love after owning a pair of Degus. After purchasing our Degus we begin to do some research online for proper diet and care as we have never owned a Degu before. Our search led us to an online pet forum, where after a few short months we began to grow more interested in Chinchillas. After doing some research and having talks with a few breeders we decided I felt comfortable with my knowledge to purchase a few. I started out with a few males which over the months the herd began to grow.
After about 8 months I felt comfortable enough with the chinchillas I was going to use for breeding and began to pair them up, sadly around this time is when the ex and I received orders back to Italy and had to begin selling off my herd as I didn't know how to transport them overseas at that time.

After about a year of being in Italy I discovered a run down pet store had a pair of chinchillas that were said to be 8 months of age, a male and a female in the same cage. They were kept in the poorest of conditions, they were being housed in a cage maybe big enough for 1-2 hamsters and were being fed what looked like bird seed along with a big chunk of bread. I bought them and brought them home in hopes of giving them a better life. Sadly 3 weeks later they both passed away. Before they passed away it led me to an online search of trying to find chinchilla breeders here in Italy. I was lucky enough to find one that came highly recommened.

During the time spent in Italy, I continued to rescue chinchillas, and do as much research as possible to keep up with the ins/outs of raising and breeding quality chinchillas. I find myself doing some kind of reading about chinchillas almost on a daily basis, in hopes of keeping my knowledge as updated as possible.

Now that I am settled in Illinois, I continue to go to shows and seminars when time permits as well as building my herd for a quality breeding program