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Has anyone ever done a DIY addition of cutting out a piece of wood and adding a vent to a wood cage? The cage only has 1 side with a wire door and I'd to add maybe a top or a back vent as well to get more airflow, as I'd imagine it gets more smelly in there after 2 or 3 days. The options I can...

Many years ago, I also had a chin who jumped off a 2nd floor balcony and hit the tiles before I knew better... He broke his back or neck and was paralyzed to the point where his hind legs didn't work at all, and I could see that his front teeth were visibly loose. I had him put down immediately...

Haven't seen this anywhere, but what diseases are communicable between chinchillas and humans? I remember someone saying the common cold and flu viruses can go from humans to chins... anything else? And if a chinchilla bites or scratches someone with its paws hard enough to draw blood, or if...

As far as I know you shouldn't be allowing your chin to have any treats (even chin-safe ones) at all until she is at about 6 months old. Chinchillas have pretty sensitive digestive systems and younger chins even more so. Just stick to a regular diet of pellets and hay for now, cut out the oats...

I think your first concern would be to see if they can physically survive in your environment. The main issue is that chins should be kept below 22 degrees C and in relatively low humidity, at all times. I'm not sure if this conflicts with the needs of any of your other animals housed in the...

Most people seem to recommend these brands: Tradition Chinchilla Specialty Diet Purina Rabbit Chow Show Oxbow Chinchilla Essentials Probably a few others that I'm forgetting... Good rabbit pellets seem to be fine as long as the quality is high and the nutritional analysis is similar to the...

Just curious, why are quick-oats not recommended? I thought quick oats and traditional oats are basically identical and are just oat flakes, but the quick oats have been cut smaller and thinner and possibly pressure steamed to absorb water faster and cook faster. Is it the higher water...

Interesting viewpoints... I'm basing my opinion on the assumption that if there is demand for X number of pet animals and demand for Y number of pelts, then a large rancher who produces X + Y number of animals will have a larger sample size to select good quality animals to put back into...

The emergency water cooling advice came from this website: http://www.greenwoodchinchillas.co.uk/emergencycool.htm But yeah, moving them somewhere where the electricity is working makes sense, and cars have AC even if the whole city is out of power. Just thinking about worst-case city brownout...

For an idea of some of the ignorance we get here, this is a translated "pedigree" from a local breeder: Style: Silver Mosaic Gender: Male DOB: 2011-12-09 Personality: Very good Condition: Healthy Liveliness: 5 Cuteness: 5 Naughtiness: 3 Popularity (WTF does this even mean?): 5 Notes: This is a...

****, that's horrible. I'd hate to lose even one of my chins due to the AC unit going out. That's also something I'm worried about... if any of our AC units go out, it's fine because every room has an independent window unit and the chins can be moved around. But if the electricity to the whole...

This is a fascinating thread. I quite enjoy reading through this and getting everyone's opinions, from the long-time ranchers to the people who run rescues. I don't quite understand why everyone is in such disagreement with what Mark wrote though. Yes, his tone and language is definitely that...

As a side note, I'm quite jealous of you having your own backdrop for a rifle. I miss being able to own guns and was quite sad to part with my small collection of pistols and shotguns before moving to Beijing. But at least they went to a good home, to one of my good ex-Navy buddies, much to the...

Mine only take the really thin branches... they totally ignore thicker ones. The only way they touch the thicker apple sticks is if I drill a hole in it and hang them up with wire. Picky picky...

I guess that would be the main issue. More waste generated than the soil could break down. Somehow I thought that the urine would be somehow beneficial for the soil, given that the ammonia in there could be fixed in the soil and recycled by the plants, but in reality I guess it doesn't always...

I understand why you shouldn't hop a male around like a potato to different females and definitely wouldn't consider doing that, but I was just curious about how males get introduced into runs with multiple females without fights popping up. In theory, it's not much different, but in practice...

This would just be for my 2 chin pet cage... just an idea, but you're right, it might not be completely practical. Still, the idea of a contained system in which the chin poo is recycled is kinda appealing, hehehe...

Appreciate it the thorough and informative replies. To address some of what you all mentioned: For feed/dust, I'm currently using Oxbow pellets. We have Oxbow and Mazuri here, and while it's sometimes difficult to find in stock, I've discovered I can order it online if necessary. We also have...

Would this be feasible? My pet chins are housed in cages with wire mesh bottoms right now... I'm wondering if instead of using wood shavings in the pan to absorb the urine, what if I just filled the pan with dirt and grass seed, or some other kind of plant? It'd be low enough that the chins...

While I don't have enough 1st hand experience, the vet that I recently saw treated 3 other chins in the time I was there, one for a teeth filing, one some kind of pregnancy issue, and the other I'm not sure. The guy seemed quite knowledgeable about chinchillas in general. One of the other chin...