chinchilla care

[candice clews]

Hi guys I know this is a hamster forum but I am thinking of buying a chinchilla soon and need advice on how to care for them here my questions,
1) what do they eat
2) what bedding do they use
3) what toys do they need
4) what essentials do they require

Thanks

[littlescruffies]

Hi if you search the Internet there are a few forums but they don't seem to have many visitors. I'm a member of a Facebook group 'all about chinchillas'.
I'm no expert as I've only had my boys since December, but I can help a bit.

1, They eat pellets and hay like rabbits. Mine have burgess and science selective, but there are other brands you can feed.

2, It depends on the type of cage you have. Lots of people use fleece and change it every couple of days. My cage has a mesh bottom, so I cover part of it with fleece and place newspaper with a fine layer of wood or paper pellets to absorb urine and the poos fall through!

3, Plenty of wood to chew. Kiln dried pine, loofah, pumice, certain twigs, willow. Chinchillas2shop is a good site for toys and forage.

4, Metal cage but not aluminium.
No plastic.
No potential falls of more than 18".
Don't give any sugary treats like you would hammies. Mine only get dried leaves and a pinch of oats twice a week.
Sand bath.
They might come to you, but aren't a pet that's wants to be held.
If you only get one, you would need to give it lots of attention.

Hope I've helped a little!
If you find the Facebook group there's lots of people on there to answer questions and also breeders

[candice clews]

Thank you very much I will join the group Now thank you for the advice xx

[BrainGirl]

Originally Posted by candice clews

Hi guys I know this is a hamster forum but I am thinking of buying a chinchilla soon and need advice on how to care for them here my questions,
1) what do they eat
2) what bedding do they use
3) what toys do they need
4) what essentials do they require

Thanks

1) They eat pellets and hay chiefly. Make sure you use pellets specifically formulated for chinchillas and not rabbits because their nutritional requirements are different and a chinchilla's health can be compromised with the wrong diet. I don't know what brands are available to you. The one I use is locally milled for professional chinchilla keepers. Some foods that are marketed for chins are actually bad for them and are little more than candy. Find experienced chin keepers and ask what they use.

2) You can use shavings or paper-based beddings, just like for hamsters, or some people use fleece. I am one of those people. I started using it with a rescue who was on the verge of bumblefoot and she liked it so much that I started giving it to everybody! I make hammocks for them now. Just make sure the chin you give it to doesn't try to eat it.

3) Safe ones! Chinchillas can and do chew everything! Make sure your family heirlooms are out of reach, by which I mean they are sealed in a concrete bunker 10 feet underground somewhere in the next town. I'm kidding, they're not that bad, but do be sure to put away anything you don't want tasted. For your sake and theirs. They will chew electrical stuff, antiques, poisonous plants, paint, drywall, cat food...

4) Essentials:

#1 is good quality hay! Make sure it's been stored properly and watch out for any mold or discolouration.

#2 is a good quality, chin-specific pellet.

#3 (though still extremely important) sticks and chew toys. You can buy them very expensively in pet stores, some people run businesses out of their homes selling prepared chew sticks, or if you're confident of your ability to identify trees, you can collect your own. They need to be washed, scrubbed clean, and then baked for at least an hour in a ~200F oven. More if the sticks are extra thick. Avoid calcium chews, cuttlebone, or similar unless directed by a chin health professional. They can easily suffer from excess nutrients and minerals since their bodies aren't equipped to handle it.

#4 would be a good quality enclosure. Either all metal or wood and metal. Make sure it's a good size with plenty of room to move around. Long is better than tall though you'll find misinformation about that all over the web. Contrary to what some people think, tall is NOT better for these guys. They have fragile little bones and if they fall awkwardly they can easily suffer breaks and internal injuries. If you have a tall cage, be sure to overlap the shelves so that if you looked down from above there's not a "hole" straight to the bottom. Make sure that your chin can't fall more than about 18" from any spot in the cage.

[candice clews]

Originally Posted by BrainGirl

1) They eat pellets and hay chiefly. Make sure you use pellets specifically formulated for chinchillas and not rabbits because their nutritional requirements are different and a chinchilla's health can be compromised with the wrong diet. I don't know what brands are available to you. The one I use is locally milled for professional chinchilla keepers. Some foods that are marketed for chins are actually bad for them and are little more than candy. Find experienced chin keepers and ask what they use.

2) You can use shavings or paper-based beddings, just like for hamsters, or some people use fleece. I am one of those people. I started using it with a rescue who was on the verge of bumblefoot and she liked it so much that I started giving it to everybody! I make hammocks for them now. Just make sure the chin you give it to doesn't try to eat it.

3) Safe ones! Chinchillas can and do chew everything! Make sure your family heirlooms are out of reach, by which I mean they are sealed in a concrete bunker 10 feet underground somewhere in the next town. I'm kidding, they're not that bad, but do be sure to put away anything you don't want tasted. For your sake and theirs. They will chew electrical stuff, antiques, poisonous plants, paint, drywall, cat food...

4) Essentials:

#1 is good quality hay! Make sure it's been stored properly and watch out for any mold or discolouration.

#2 is a good quality, chin-specific pellet.

#3 (though still extremely important) sticks and chew toys. You can buy them very expensively in pet stores, some people run businesses out of their homes selling prepared chew sticks, or if you're confident of your ability to identify trees, you can collect your own. They need to be washed, scrubbed clean, and then baked for at least an hour in a ~200F oven. More if the sticks are extra thick. Avoid calcium chews, cuttlebone, or similar unless directed by a chin health professional. They can easily suffer from excess nutrients and minerals since their bodies aren't equipped to handle it.

#4 would be a good quality enclosure. Either all metal or wood and metal. Make sure it's a good size with plenty of room to move around. Long is better than tall though you'll find misinformation about that all over the web. Contrary to what some people think, tall is NOT better for these guys. They have fragile little bones and if they fall awkwardly they can easily suffer breaks and internal injuries. If you have a tall cage, be sure to overlap the shelves so that if you looked down from above there's not a "hole" straight to the bottom. Make sure that your chin can't fall more than about 18" from any spot in the cage.

Thank you very much for all of the advice,can't wait to get one

[Queen Of The High Teas]

Originally Posted by candice clews

Hi guys I know this is a hamster forum but I am thinking of buying a chinchilla soon and need advice on how to care for them here my questions,
1) what do they eat
2) what bedding do they use
3) what toys do they need
4) what essentials do they require

Thanks

They eat hay and pellets, mine is fed on science selective pellets, a handful of Timothy or Meadow hay a day, a few pieces of one of the Burns dried grasses (meadow mix, dandelion, plantain, coltsfoot) which I alternate regularly. A sunflower seed or tiny pinch of dry Quakers oats as an occaisional treat and a raisin once in a blue moon as a little indulgence.

I use wood shavings, and I tiled the base of my cage so that it's cool to stand on in the summer if I put in less shavings. I don't use fleece mainly because she has fleece hammocks so I think she has enough of the stuff!

I find shop bought toys expensive so got creative. I bought a pack of clips for £2 and a piece of polar fleece off eBay for £5 and got 5 hammocks plus a tunnel cover out of it, when I'd sewn them up. Really easy to do with a sewing machine, I just put them in the washing machine once a week and their dry in 30 minutes. She also likes toilet and kitchen roll tubes, small cardboard boxes, cardboard tunnels/tubes (go to a carpet shop and you'll get whole length of cardboard tubing for free that you just cut down yourself) a chew cube which I stuff with her hay to give her something to do pulling it out and various chewy things, wooden chews, cuttlefish etc. The only shop things in the cage are one hammock and a fleecy igloo bed, which she wouldn't go near when I first got it, but now I finds her asleep in it every morning.

Essentials - sand! You will deffo need sand but don't leave it in all the time as they over bath and their goes dry and sore, mine gets 10 mins 2-3 times a week.
Chew things, they chew everything, the especially love wood, so make sure you have plenty of chew toys about. Also cuttlefish, pumice stone and 'Superpet Lava Bites' go down well.
Cage- no plastic! At all! It will be chewed through really quickly and it's dangerous for them to eat it as not surprisingly, plastic isn't meant to be digested You need either an all metal cage, which if it has a mesh base, needs at least partially covering as its not comfortable and bad for their feet, or a wire and wood one. I've got a converted aviary and it's holding up well, but the inside parts of the wood are covered with the mesh so it's not chewable. If you use a wooden and mesh cage make sure all wood on the inside has mesh over it. My cage is taller than it is high but it's broken up with shelves and hammocks all the way down so there is no way she can drop more then about 6" between them if she did somehow fall.
Shelves - they love shelves! You need untreated pine and as many as you can fit in the cage easily! One or two won't cut it, my girl would go mad with only one or two shelves to leap from!
A chew proof water bottle - or you need to come up with a way that the plastic parts on a normal one can't be reached. Glass bottles are good as their totally unbreakable, unless your accident prone like me, then it'd be lucky to see out the day.
Hay - chins need hay both to eat and help keep their teeth the right length. Good quality Timothy and meadow hay is best, make sure there's always some available. I put a handful in a chew cube each evening, it's usually totally gone by the following evening. Doing this means there's not so much left over that it falls on the floor therefore she's only eating clean fresh stuff.
Time, exercise and YOU - in my experience, they do not sit about on one shelf all day like some people think. Sure, when I go past first thing that's what she's doing and I can well see why people think their boring if that's all they do, but when I get her out, she's a totally different animal. Chins need exercise, lots of it, mine runs around the house for 3, 4, sometimes 5 hours everyday. I bring her in around 10-11 in the morning and put her back in her cage about 3-4 in the afternoon, and during this time she will run, bound about, take an occasional nap, jump all over you and follows me from room to room like a dog whilst I'm doing housework. If I'm ironing in the living room she's running about, if I then go upstairs to sort out the laundry she'll be round my feet 10 seconds later. She's like something off a Disney movie keeping me company whilst I do chores. She's tame, cuddly, holdeable, brushable, pettable and loves people. I got her from a good breeder who handled her lots which is partly why she's so tame, but a lot of it is also the amount of time I spend with her as she's running about. So if you do get one, get one off a decent breeder and be prepared to spends lots of time with it (perhaps not as much I do, I realise that's a little excessive for most people to do), and you will get the nicest, and the most fun rodent pet of them all out of it. If you haven't got much time to spend with one, maybe get two together for company, but two chins won't bond to you the same as one will. They will bond to each other instead, whereas one will see you as its playmate so it will bond to you. If you have the time though and you give it plenty of attention so it's not going to get bored and lonely, one is fine.