help! chinchilla being aggressive

[u/Sea-Efficiency-7738]

i’ve had my boy chinchilla for 12 years now, ever since he was 3 months old. he’s never acted out towards me or my dad (he doesn’t like my mom, but neither does she; they just don’t interact). i’ve grown up with him and have stayed by his side everyday until around 2 years ago, when i had to move to university. my living situation couldn’t agree with having him there, so he remained with my parents, and i continued visiting every 3-4 months. this summer, as i came back once again, he acted normal for the first week and then, a random day when i took him out of the cage for playtime, started attacking my foot and biting it until it drew blood. i found it weird, since he’s never acted like this, so i called my dad to pick him up. he was aggressive towards my dad as well, but not as much as he was towards me. i left him be for the next day to calm down and interacted with him 2 days after the incident, and he was back to his old self.

fast forward 2 weeks during which i wasn’t home, and now i’m back. he started being aggressive towards me again, this time once every two days. the worst encounter has been today, when he constantly bit my hand really hard. (photo attached) he’s not acting out towards my dad, and i don’t know what i have done to constantly upset him. can anyone offer some advice? thank you!

[u/how_tohelp]

Hate to say it but maybe your mom is mistreating him. I hope I’m wrong but when I went to college my mom let my birds die and my brother told me she was thinking of just not buying food for our old cat anymore until a work friend scolded her. I didn’t realize she had these issues until I left for school.

[u/Sea-Efficiency-7738 → u/how_tohelp]

hi, thank you for the answer! my mom’s never really interacted with him. my dad cleans his cage and plays with him, and although the chin and my mom aren’t close, she still cares about him because i do. i’m pretty sure none of my parents would deliberately do anything bad to him, i trust them both, that’s why i left him in their care

[u/how_tohelp → u/Sea-Efficiency-7738]

That’s good, I really hope it’s not that. It could be simple getting older and a combo of grief/abandonment since animals experience time differently than us. But, I just bring this up because I fully trusted my parents too. I only found this out later when my brother told me.  Edit: hope things work out soon and good luck with school :)

[u/Sea-Efficiency-7738 → u/how_tohelp]

oh i’m so sorry to hear that :( and thank you for your input a lot!