Litter Training a Serial Pee-er!

[MinchiBaby]

Hello! Almost 2 months ago I adopted a bonded pair of very sweet chins from a previous owner. They've already become quite attached to us, which is just the sweetest thing! The previous owner had adopted them separately from other owners, who she said did not provide good care, so I don't know much of their history except that they are around 4 years old each. I use fleece liners in their cage, and a small glass litter box. It seems one chinchilla uses it occasionally, however I suspect the other one is a terrible serial pee-er! I have found pee absolutely everywhere, on top of houses, sprayed onto my walls (I rent my apartment!!!), on their new wooden bridge... I am at my wits end. It is making the room smell terrible and adds a lot of scrubbing time onto my day. It seeps between the bars of their ferret nation cage and is really difficult to clean. She seems to not have a single pee corner like my last chin did, just pee all over the cage wherever and whenever she can. I clean the cage and room daily but would have to switch the liners every day which isn't realistic given we have to do laundry outside of the house. For the first week they were here, they were living on aspen bedding (that I currently use in the litter box) which was a disaster as they are very active girls and it made a huge mess, so if I don't have to I'd rather not go that route. Even with the fleece liners they kick a lot of debris all the way across the room somehow lol. I had an idea I wasn't sure if anyone else had tried. If I remove the fleece, just have them living on the bass metal pans and have multiple litter boxes, could that encourage them to use the boxes more faithfully? It would only be until they get the hang of using the boxes more regularly, and then I could perhaps reintroduce the fleece. It doesn't need to be a 100% success, just using the boxes more than quite literally anywhere else. Any tips anyone has would be hugely appreciated, anything to help keep the cage a little more manageable would be super helpful. I of course know and don't mind that mess comes with the territory, it's just the constant peeing everywhere that's becoming really hard to manage.

 

[Amethyst]

It's hard to say if removing the fleece will work, but it's worth a try, some chins actually enjoy peeing on something soft so without fleece the only option is the shavings. However keep in mind that if you just have bare metal and they pee on it, it will splash and could get pee all over them. If you try that make sure you are going to be home all day to clean up any pee on the pans as soon as it happens, and ideally soak up some with some shavings to put into the litter pan, that way the place that smells like pee is in the pan . With luck they will learn eventually, but unfortunately not all do.

Another option is to try to train them to pee in one spot. Basically start with the whole floor covered in shavings, then slowly reduce the amount of the floor covered (can take a few weeks), cleaning up any pee not on the shavings and soaking up some with the shavings in the cage. If you are lucky they will continue to want to pee on the shavings instead of the bare floor, and once you get it to just the corners or corner of the cage you can put a pan with shavings there.

You can also try adding smooth rocks, large enough for the chin to sit on, into the litter pan, for some reason chins seem to like to pee sitting on rocks so that can encourage them to pee there. My current chin doesn't have rocks, but here is a photo of the litter pan setup I had for my previous two.


For the pee on the walls, I put up a fleece blanket on the wall behind my cage, you can also clip the fleece to the cage itself, but some chins like to try to pull it into the cage. Also since you have bass pans you could try getting the urine/scatter guards to go with them to make the pans deeper (adds an extra 5") if you end up having to stick with shavings.

 

[MinchiBaby]

It's hard to say if removing the fleece will work, but it's worth a try, some chins actually enjoy peeing on something soft so without fleece the only option is the shavings. However keep in mind that if you just have bare metal and they pee on it, it will splash and could get pee all over them. If you try that make sure you are going to be home all day to clean up any pee on the pans as soon as it happens, and ideally soak up some with some shavings to put into the litter pan, that way the place that smells like pee is in the pan . With luck they will learn eventually, but unfortunately not all do.

Another option is to try to train them to pee in one spot. Basically start with the whole floor covered in shavings, then slowly reduce the amount of the floor covered (can take a few weeks), cleaning up any pee not on the shavings and soaking up some with the shavings in the cage. If you are lucky they will continue to want to pee on the shavings instead of the bare floor, and once you get it to just the corners or corner of the cage you can put a pan with shavings there.

You can also try adding smooth rocks, large enough for the chin to sit on, into the litter pan, for some reason chins seem to like to pee sitting on rocks so that can encourage them to pee there. My current chin doesn't have rocks, but here is a photo of the litter pan setup I had for my previous two.
View attachment 22346

For the pee on the walls, I put up a fleece blanket on the wall behind my cage, you can also clip the fleece to the cage itself, but some chins like to try to pull it into the cage. Also since you have bass pans you could try getting the urine/scatter guards to go with them to make the pans deeper (adds an extra 5") if you end up having to stick with shavings.

That all makes SO much sense, thank you for the ideas!!! She might really enjoy peeing on the rocks, at one point she was balancing on her food bowl to pee in it and also took to peeing on the cooling tile. She'll pee anywhere except where I want her to lol.

 

[Binki]

at one point she was balancing on her food bowl to pee in it

The chinchillas natural habitat is full of fist sized rocks, so perhaps such a rock in a bowl might be a solution worth trying. My boy was about four when I adopted him (although the vet thinks he was a bit older) but he immediately took to pee on a rock sitting in a stainless steel dog bowl, with a double newspaper page tightly folded underneath as absorbent material.

Because he is pretty lazy (and let's face it, who likes to go to a loo far away when one is sleepy) there are three such devices in his cage, one for each level, and he never pees anywhere else. He even has a rock/newspaper pee-house for playtime. Easy to clean and all recyclable..