Chinchillas in Hot Climates

[chinnyluvr420]

Hey all!

As spring time comes around, the weather has been getting increasingly warmer. I live in Los Angeles, CA, where we’re known for the very warm weather for most months of the year. I got my chin, Momo in December so I haven’t been exposed to this issue yet:

What is the best way to keep Momo cool?

I have AC in my apartment and I’ve been using that, along with keeping the windows open throughout the place. If anyone has any tips/insight to Spring and Summer with chinchillas, it would be greatly appreciated

 

[Amethyst]

The best way to keep the chin cool is having an AC in the room with them. Having windows open is ok if it's cool enough outside (60 F or below) so it actually lowers the temp in the house. Make sure there is no air blowing on the chinchilla cage though, a draft can make the chin sick. For added cooling, in addition to the AC, you can get stone tiles like chin chiller tiles at a pet store, or even just buy tiles at a hardware store. You can put the tiles in the fridge for added cooling and change them out through out the day if it's a particularly hot day. The tiles are only useful if the chin actually sits on them, not all chins do, but it's nice to have them in case they do.

In case you are wondering, fans are useless for cooling unless they are pulling cool air in and lowering the temp. Otherwise at most a fan is only useful to circulate air around if it's getting stuffy in the apartment. Chins don't/can't sweat so air blowing around doesn't cool them like it does us. Also fans don't lower humidity, which needs to stay below 50% for chins.

Another thing, if it's above 70F in the apartment don't allow Momo out for playtime, he could over heat.

 

[chinnyluvr420]

Thank you so much! I’ll look into buying those tiles as we start experiencing hotter weather.

 

[Devynthecatwithsocks]

Yeah I got my Roo in January so I haven't experienced keeping her cool in LA either. She seems to be doing ok. I have the fan on all the time but I guess that won't work. I am recently opening my windows especially at night. It is nice and cool outside but not too cool or breezy. I keep the window open while the fan is running to help circulation. I have noticed her on her cooling stone a lot more as well. I have to be careful however because with me having to keep the temp low my animals that need higher temps are suffering. I am kinda stuck what to do at this point.....

 

[cboyer]

Yeah I got my Roo in January so I haven't experienced keeping her cool in LA either. She seems to be doing ok. I have the fan on all the time but I guess that won't work. I am recently opening my windows especially at night. It is nice and cool outside but not too cool or breezy. I keep the window open while the fan is running to help circulation. I have noticed her on her cooling stone a lot more as well. I have to be careful however because with me having to keep the temp low my animals that need higher temps are suffering. I am kinda stuck what to do at this point.....

Lamps. You can keep the room as a whole cool for the chinchilla, then if you have lizards and stuff that need it warmer you can put heating lamps shining down on their cage to make sure they have warm spots. Much easier to heat certain areas than to cool certain areas.