Thanks for getting back to me and others reading this, it great to know how things go. It sounds now that things are getting better. So they are brothers, that's good to know as it must mean they have been brought up together, plus the home you have given them is likely to be bigger than the pet could have provided.
If you recommend Portons Pets I'll try to find if they have a website and add them to the links page, as lots of people find it hard to get chipmunks.
Timmy sounds as if he's settling in more, given a choice chipmunks do seem to prefer nesting in tubes over the usual type of nest boxes. Perhaps now that Sprite has established his dominance he will leave Timmy alone, and would probably rather have the company than be alone.
With seeing in the dark, I don't think they have especially super night vision such as an owl, but I have seen mine get up in the dark and manage to navigate around. So I would make a guess and say their vision at night is about the same as ours. BTW, they do need access to sunlight, sounds daft but sunbathing is a big thing with Chipmunks. I've found with mine, they will go off to bed early if I'm not around. But if I'm with them, a lot of mine will stay up until 8pm. So I think they actually like human company, or at least their owners.
People might disagree with me here, but I think you can use as many peanuts as you want at this taming stage. None of mine have just sat there eating one after another, when they have eaten one or two the rest are eagerly taken to be hidden. So I don't think you run a risk of over feeding them on peanuts. Their body clocks are telling them to store as much food as they can before winter. Everyone says you should start to tame them as soon as you can, so get on in there. The only danger food I know of for over feeding are the live worms, which are very rich, so they do need to be rationed.
Have fun this weekend watching them, a warning though, they can take over your life. Since I got chippies I'm often late, struggle to get any work done, and go for days without knowing what's happened in the world. They are just so captivating, and they know it. This post took much longer to write than it would have done to read, as Toto wanted to play hide and seek.
