I haven't been on the boards for a while. I have been avoiding chinchilla related stuff since early January.
I blame myself because I had been in and out of the house a lot working extra shifts so I didn't get to spend as much time with him. Maybe I would have seen something wrong earlier...
You say you are sticking to your 1800, but you also say you eat a lot of fruit. Fruit is a lot of sugar calories without much protein to hold you over. Lots of food guides also do not take into account the size of fruit. Is it a small gala apple or a huge red delicious? Stress can also make you...
I use 1x8s or 1x6s (depending on what part of the cage I am on (I use wider boards at the top) and Flea never never has problems with balance or anything. Whatever board you buy will be slightly narrower and thinner than the number (due to planing and drying) so make sure you think about your...
The acceptable levels of certain contaminants like giardia cysts in municipal water supplies are safe for humans but the same water could cause a giardia infection in a chin.
I checked the Ice Mountain filtration data. It is filtered at better than 2 nm, so it should be safe. Most giardia...
I don't use the area immediately around Flea's cage as a play area because I don't want to tempt him to try to go play any time I open the cage. Plus, playtime becomes playtime, not "go in and out and take a nap and maybe wander back out over an hour" time so I don't have to watch him as long...
And toothbrushes, toothpaste, and real listerine! Nothing worse than someone getting their braces off and having a bunch of cavities around them because of all the new places for stuff to get stuck.
I drill most of my holes with a dremel (makes small enough holes to easily start screws and leaves enough for a snug thread catch). I cut shelves with a circular saw and use a drill to screw in the mounting screws.
Flea definitely remembers people and situations. I have lived by myself for 2 years and my brother and his dog came over a few days ago. Flea and the dog were "friends" when we lived together and Flea ran down to the bottom of the cage as soon as the dog came in and didn't go back into his house...
Be careful with the "6-month" cures. Moving the teeth too fast can damage the jaw and connective tissue and lead to more painful teeth problems in the future. My mom has dentures now because her ortho moved her teeth too quickly and it wrecked her jaw to the point that it would not hold her...
I remember the foot patches they used to advertise that supposed pulled all of the toxins out of your body by wearing them at night. They showed them dirty in the morning and everything. We had some in chemistry class and showed that it was just a redox reaction with the moisture on your feet.
I have never purchased from an infomercial, but I have visited a couple of "As Seen on TV" stores where I could handle and look at the quality of the products. Never been terribly impressed.