Chinchilla's Weight

[ljiayi]

How do you guys weigh your chinchillas?

 

[Chinmama]

We use a kitchen scale that weighs in grams. I lure them onto the scale with dust and a oat.

 

[carmen holt]

what is the average weight for a 7 month old chinchilla?

 

[Zoaea]

The adult weight for a chin can vary widely, like from 450 gram to over 1000, so by 7 months it would be hard to say an average that would be meaningful. The thing for growing chins is that you take a base rate (starting weight) and they should grow from there. Some chins also stop growing late, like my BV girl grew until she was 18 months or so.

If you have a lot of chins to weigh (like rescues or breeders) I love the method my vet uses, its a large plastic container with a lid and air holes drilled in it so that the chin can't hop off the scale.

 

[mknoblich1]

I use a kitchen scale that weighs in grams. I take one of the wooden houses in the cage and take it out and flip it over and place it on the scale. The house I use has an open bottom a it's kind of like a big wooden bowl. To get them to stay still long enough to get an accurate weight I break a treat up into small parts and feed them the treat. It's worked pretty successfully for me so far. I weigh weekly and keep their weights written down in a notebook.

 

[aznmexaggie]

I use a digital postal scale, place the chin on it and hold my hands on the sides of them to prevent them from jumping off.

 

[carmen holt]

Thank you very much for all your answers I dried to weigh him yesterday but that stinker wouldn't get on the scale so I put a cheerios in the middle of the scale and he snatched it haha I guess I keep trying last time I weighed him he was 425 grams he is about 7 month old

 

[Dreamlite]

I use one of the death balls. I put them in and turn it over on the scale so they can't jump off. Kitchen scales or postal scales are the only ones Ihave found that measure in grams.

 

[ChinChiq]

If you have a lot of chins to weigh (like rescues or breeders) I love the method my vet uses, its a large plastic container with a lid and air holes drilled in it so that the chin can't hop off the scale.

My vet uses the same method. She has one of those large plastic critter houses like you would use for a lizard or hermit crab. I have one at home too.

 

[Caroline]

I weigh the dustbath and a cd that I use to keep them inside, I zero out the scale, then I put the dustbath in their cage, wait until they go inside, cover the door with the cd, put all on the scale and weigh them. If they are taking to long to go inside the dustbath I need to keep tapping the scale so it doesn't shut off automatically.