Sunshine Chinchillas

Meeting and Travel

Sunshine Chinchillas is a home-based facility, we do not offer tours or allow strangers into our home. Please note that we are located in the Central Florida area, we do not offer long distance meetups. All surrenders are available upon appointment in a public meetup location of our choosing, this location can be found on our website here: Welcome to the Space Coast.

 

Surrender Availability

To begin the surrender process, we do require all potential adopters to fill out our Surrender Form as well as review our Surrender Policy. Once these have been completed and reviewed, we will reach out to you based on our availability. We currently do not offer surrender wait lists; our space/availability is only available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please remember, we are a very small facility and don't have space to take everyone.

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Surrender Fee

Unfortunately, with the high volume of surrender emails we get on a daily basis we do have to set a fee in place to help with the care of these animals. This fee is based on how many chinchillas need to be surrendered. This fee is non-negotiable and will need to be paid prior to the surrender appointment. If fee is not paid within 24 hours of being issued, no surrender appointment will be scheduled.

 

This fee is sent via PayPal to secure a space in our rescue for the animal(s). This fee goes towards the care of the animal: food, water, hay, shavings, cleaning supplies, A/C power bill, gas, toys, treats, and supplies to make toys, as well as our time. If you are ready to secure a spot in our rescue, please let us know your preferred email for us to send the invoice to. If the fee is not paid within 24 hours of being sent, we will move on to the next person looking to surrender.

 

Once paid, the chinchilla(s) must be surrendered within two weeks of the fee being paid. No-shows or anyone that decides not to surrender after the fee is paid will forfeit the fee, no refunds. 

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Sunshine Chinchillas does not accept phone calls, only text messages. Once the fee has been paid, you will receive our business phone number for faster communication.

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Appointments

Please note, we are not a pet store. We do work and setup appointments based on our availability, we only perform surrender appointments on Sundays between 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Once the appointment is set, we will send you the meetup location to map out as well as our business phone number (for texting only). On the morning of the surrender appointment, we will contact you to reconfirm and provide parking instructions. Please remember, you must respond in a timely manner to our contact attempts. If no response is received within two hours of the surrender appointment, we will cancel the appointment and the deposit will be forfeit. If you need to change the appointment date for any reason, please let us know 24 hours in advance. We do understand that life happens and emergencies pop up. However, if the surrender appointment has been rescheduled more than two times, we reserve the right to cancel the surrender all-together with no refund. 

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Preparing for the Surrender Appointment​

We understand that this can be an extremely emotional and hard time for owners when giving up beloved pets. That being said, please remember these are living creatures and it is just as stressful for them, if not more so as they do not understand what is going on. We encourage owners to spend some time with their chinchilla(s) prior to the surrender appointment and say their goodbyes at home or in the car before getting out. This reduces the stress on the animals during the appointment, as well as prevent the possibility of the animal(s) getting out of the travel carrier in a public area. ​

 

The animal(s) will need to brought in a proper travel carrier: plastic cat carriers or small metal animal transport cages with proper airflow are sufficient, as well as temporary cardboard animal travel carriers purchasable at most pet stores. If you do not have a travel carrier, please let us know; we cannot take an animal without a carrier to take them home in.

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Supplies to Bring

At this time, we do not have the space to take cages anymore. Most new owners purchase a cage new prior to adopting; more often than not, the cage a chinchilla is surrendered with does not go back out with them. Any cages used may be donatable to your local squirrel or kitten rescue; or resold/recycled/donated elsewhere.

 

We do accept supplies like food, hay, shavings, toys, anti-pill fleece hammocks/liners and treats. Unsafe supplies will not be accepted and we will ask you to donate/recycle those. These supplies include:

• Fabric: towels, stuffed animals, blankets, clothing, pillows, non-fleece hammocks/toys.

• Plastic Exercise Balls

• Plastic Items: food bowls, water bottles, running balls, houses, dust houses, litter pans, running wheels, toys.

• Wire or Plastic Running Wheels

• Wire Hay Racks/Balls

• Puppy Pee Pads

• Carboard: toys, tubes, houses.

• Flooring Tiles or Laminate

• Bakeware/Kitchen Items

• Leashes or Harnesses

• Rocks or Granite

• Small Animal Costumes

• Unsafe Treats: salt licks, cookies, biscuits, fruits, nuts, chew logs.

• Broken or Filthy Items: any kind.

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Please note, we DO NOT accept cages at this time. Travel carriers are fine; any carriers/travel cages that must be disassembled to fit inside of a small car are not accepted.

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During the Appointment

During the appointment, you are welcome to ask any questions. We try to make the process as streamlined as possible to reduce stress on the animal(s). Again, please remember to spend time with your chinchilla(s) prior to the appointment to say any goodbyes. We do often have multiple other adoption/surrender appointments scheduled the same day; if you are running late, please let us know as soon as possible. If you are running an hour behind, this will impede the time we have available to answer any of your questions. We do have to accommodate other adopters/surrenders for their allotted time as well.

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We will ask that you provide us with any supplies you would like to donate so that we may put them in our vehicle. Then we will likely place the chinchilla in the and shut the door to keep them cool in the hot Florida weather. If you would like to see them once more, let us know. We do not encourage opening the carrier once they are outside of your home as the animal(s) can be very stressed during the process, we do not want to risk anyone getting loose.

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Once all your questions have been answered, we will let you know you can text our business number during office hours with any questions or updates. We do our best to let you know how the chinchilla(s) are doing while they are in our care.

 

Running Late, Poor Weather Conditions, Bad Traffic

We try to keep surrender appointments around 10-15 minutes in length so that we have time to return and get them settled in before our next adoption/surrender appointment.

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If you are running considerably behind, please note that this will impede the time we have available for your surrender appointment. We ask that in these cases the appointment be as fast and efficient as possible once you arrive. If weather conditions are poor, we will keep your appointment; however, we will again try to be hasty to avoid lightning, dangerous driving conditions, and/or getting the chinchilla(s) wet.

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If you are running late due to personal reasons, bad weather, or traffic, please let us know as soon as possible with your updated ETA. Once you are 15 minutes away, please send us an email/text/message to let us know.

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After Surrendering

Once the chinchilla(s) and their supplies have been surrender to us, they become the property of Sunshine Chinchillas. We do not adopt said animals back out to the owners who surrendered them, nor do we provide their new adopter's information to the previous home. This is for the safety and well-being of everyone involved. 

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We can provide periodic updates on the animal(s) while in our care. Once they find homes, we will no longer be able to do so. We vet out every adopter to ensure we find the best homes possible any of the chinchilla(s) in our care. We try to match the chinchilla(s) personality and needs to the persons interested. If someone cannot provide proper answers to our questions, is unable to fill out our forms, is deceitful in anyway, or we get a strong feeling that it is not the right fit, we do reserve the right to not adopt out the animal(s) to said persons.

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Helpful Information

We try to add as much information to our website to assist owners with the surrender process. Below are a few pages we like to refer everyone to during this process:

 

Our Public Meetup Location:

Welcome to the Space Coast

 

Other Helpful Links:

Surrender Policy

Money Saving Tips

Our Mission Statement

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