Help a new Chin owner?

[Dumbledore]

I just got two Chinchillas yesterday. My friend could not take care of them, so I took them in. I have never owned Chinchillas. I have a couple of questions:
My friend gave me a bunch of supplies, and some bags of Marshmallow Leaf and Red Clover Blossoms? What is that used for?

I know that they are sensitive to heat- any tips for cooling them off since it does get in the 100's here in the summer. I heard of Chin-Chillers? Can you just use a regular marble slab?

It also gets cold here, would a heating lamp be recommended if the temperature is in the 40's and what kind of bulb is best? I just want a LITTLE heat, but not so much that they will over heat.

Any cheap, easy ideas for chew toys? I heard some one say they used PVC pipes, is that safe for Chins?

 

[ninjaturtletayy]

I have no idea what the marshmallow leaf and clover blossoms are. My guess would be treats.

You're going to need to make sure that you have air conditioning for the chins in the summer. Even with a chin-chiller, they are going to overheat. Regular marble is just fine; my parents just did remodeling in the kitchen, so I took a piece of the leftovers. Chins should never really get anywhere over 70 degrees to help prevent overheating. Some people freeze cans of soup to give to chins in emergencies too to help keep cool.

They don't need heat lamps or anything like that. A heater, maybe. But again, it shouldn't get anywhere above 70. Maybe 75 at the absolute most, but even that is high. Are you not keeping them inside? If they're in your house, the temperature of your house is just fine.

PVC pipes are not meant as chew toys; they're used as places for chins to lay and relax. If you get a PVC pipe, I suggest covering it in fleece to help prevent chewing. If you go under the Chin Supplies For Sale area there's a grand master list of people that sell the tubes and fleece covers. Chins cannot have any plastic exposed at all in their cages, especially not for chew toys. Chewing plastic can lead to them getting impacted teeth, which can lead to death if it gets bad. Pumice stones are good chew toys, along with various wood chews. Just make sure that the wood is safe for chins.

 

[Dumbledore]

Thank you
I do keep them inside, but there is no heat running at night and it gets pretty cold- in the low negatives some times

 

[akane]

A lot of people feed dried herbs and legumes (alfalfa, clover) as treats. You can get all sorts of dried things from online vendors. Rose hips are also good.

You will have to keep them cooler than the outdoors. Some type of air conditioning is required. There's really no way around it in places that get hot. If it gets over 74-75 you should try to keep them from exercising too much, put in chiller tiles, and possibly frozen items they can't chew. 40 is a little low. They probably could adjust but it would be better to provide a small amount of heat. It would be safer and probably cheaper to get a small space heater to bring it up by at least 10 degrees instead of those heat lamps which heat a very small area, can start fires if they fall (lots of people have lost their chicken coops in winter or had a hole burnt through the floor), and waste a lot of electricity on light you don't need instead of pure heat. The US is also phasing out incandescent bulbs which is the kind that produces heat. It may be hard to find bulbs soon.

There are lots of toy makers in the classifieds as well as plain woods, drilled woods, and wood ledges with mounting hardware installed. You can also use bird toys that don't have plastic. Mine love bird toys. As they chew them apart I pick up the large drilled pieces and put them on one of those little metal sticks with a screw on bell sold for feeding vegetables to small animals. They get chewed again that way. Some also like woven willow objects. Katsu just spent 3 days destroying a large willow basket and while he had lots of fun he also made a huge mess in the process. Luckily they are only a few dollars from one of the vendors. Don't remember which one I ordered from.