Need help with noise

[jbrianchamberlin]

We have, like many new chin owners, a bit of a situation. The chin cage is in my daughters room and we've already gotten used to the constant mess of hay and poop turds all over the floor. The vacuum is never too far... hey it's just part of having chins, right? We got rid of the plastic (the first week) and the chins are enjoying their new stainless steel flying saucer disc that didn't take them more than a day to get the hang up. HOWEVER, my daughter is not able to sleep because of the noise. The wheel itself is pretty darn quiet but the cage rattles something terrible while their on it. Their constant jumping and bouncing around. I feel bad for her because I got up for a drink last night at 3AM and I saw her light on. She was laying in bed watching television because she couldn't sleep. She eventually went down to the sofa where she slept the rest of the night. There is no where else for us to put these little girls as we have 2 cats and a Boxer who would just annoy them them death. Any suggestions would be great. I'm thinking of putting a piece of wood under the flying saucer arm... but I'm not sure if that will make a huge difference.

 

[carmen holt]

maybe too another spot in the cage if thats possible that might help

 

[mercynursie]

II have double and triple level FN cages and I've found that mounting a 12 inch wide pine board that goes from the botton of the cage to the top vertically then drilling holes for the u-bolts and mounting the flying saucer just like it would be normally mounted pretty much quieted the noise of wheel/cage shaking down to almost no noise! You do have to buy 3 longer shanked u-bolts and of course the length of pine, but the quietness of 7(soon to be 8) flying saucers was worth every single penny.

 

[mercynursie]

Tried to snap a pic so you could see better than I can explain.First pic shows the wheel mounted to the pine board and the second pic shows a grumpy Eeyore (woken up from the flash) and how the board runs down the back of the cages.Hope it helps. I know it made a huge difference with all my guys.The last pic shows the very bottom level cage with its saucer. BTW please excuse the poops,I haven't been able to clean cages since I got home yet!

 

[Basket_of_Chinchillas]

What kind of cage do you have jbrian?

 

[Cinder and Me]

Probably not the answer you're looking for...but I'd never put the cage in my room. LOL

Is there another location you can put the cage? I've always had the cage in the family room or living room. No where too noisy, but not too far from family either. )

 

[jbrianchamberlin]

Tried to snap a pic so you could see better than I can explain.First pic shows the wheel mounted to the pine board and the second pic shows a grumpy Eeyore (woken up from the flash) and how the board runs down the back of the cages.Hope it helps. I know it made a huge difference with all my guys.The last pic shows the very bottom level cage with its saucer. BTW please excuse the poops,I haven't been able to clean cages since I got home yet!

Thanks for posting the pics. I really appreciate that. I can see us doing something like that with the board on the outside. I'm just not sure how that's going to quiet down the cage rattle. Guess it couldn't hurt to try.

 

[jbrianchamberlin]

What kind of cage do you have jbrian?

We have the cage that's listed in this ad.

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4191242&f=PAD/psNotAvailInUS/No

 

[jbrianchamberlin]

Probably not the answer you're looking for...but I'd never put the cage in my room. LOL

Is there another location you can put the cage? I've always had the cage in the family room or living room. No where too noisy, but not too far from family either. )

Unfortunately, no. We don't have a very large house. In fact, we turned the basement in our bedroom so the kids could have the upstairs. Besides, we have 2 cats and a dog. That wouldn't do.

 

[Godofgods]

Mercy had the best idea depending on the type of cage and the type of wheel you have. I took some quick shots of the wheel my girls use. (And they are asleep so i haven't cleaned the cage yet).

You can see the U-bolts i use as well. Spread out to mount and absorb noise as evenly as possible. And you can always get some more from a hardware shop and add them if you wanted.

Not the prettiest ones ever made, but they work. These two are of the wooden support i use for the wheel. The top has a half-cylindrical cut down it so it molds to the bar of the wheel. Its also unlikely that you will find a wood that thick for this, so i just took one sheet and cut several layers and stacked them on top of each other. However the chin will eventually tear them out if left as is. So i took a thin wooden dowel rod, drilled a small whole though the layers of support wood at each corner. Then inserted the dowel. That made the support all one single piece that they couldn't tear apart so easily. - Just make sure to use a chin safe wood cause they will chew it.

As you saw in the second pic on the page, i wanted that top bar of the wheel to be attached at the horizontal bar of the cage. So i had to make sure i used enough wood so that it reached. And in-case this applies, you do not want the metal bar directly on top of any metal trays. They will clang together and be very loud. So leave some distance in between.

Best way for me to attach all this was to put the assembled wooden support into place first. Then put the wheel on top of it so it rest snuggly on the support. Then use the U-bolts to attach the wheel to the cage. - Other wise you end up with the wheel being just slightly off the wood, and then they just smack together.

If you have metal trays on a metal type cage, you might also consider putting a layer of fleece between the bottom bars and the tray. It will act as a dampener of noise, since the tray metal wont be clanging on the cage metal.

 

[ljiayi]

Another option is to remove the flying saucer from the cage and only use it during play time with the chin?

 

[Dreamlite]

That's part of doing research before you get the pet. They are active at times we sleep..... bed room is never a good place for them. I just got in 2 new rescues for just that reason.

 

[Pikaia]

Yeah, I have to agree with Cinder. I wouldn't have their cages in my room! I can barely sleep as it is. My bf snores like crazy, so I sleep in a different room. I'm a very light sleeper. Hopefully you guys can figure something out!!!

 

[Morganpanda]

I have Sigma's cage in my room, and he makes a ton of noise. The thing is that hubby and I can't really sleep without some kind of background noise so we actually like it. (we're crazy! I know)

The first couple weeks we didn't sleep very well primarily because we were getting used to the sound. There are some louder sounds that Sigma is able to make that gets us a bit up, but we just turn over and fall back to sleep.

If she's a light sleeper, I'd suggest moving the cage from her room at night -- just at night, if you can wheel it and whatnot. It might help just to even put the chin out in the hallway for the night, or bathroom or whatnot. Or, you can get something that can mute out the chinchilla noise. We have an air purifier that we bought for $40 at Walmart that is pretty "loud" but not overly loud. It's like, a white noise wind kind of sound and it's actually very tranquilizing to sleep with.

 

[mrsmitchell]

We also have 2 dogs and 2 cats and our cage is in the playroom/living area of the house, we put the cage in a corner, so there is only front access that way Sydney (chin) can have the whole back and sides to stay away if the other animals were bugging her. Our animals all settled with each other within a few days, with no issues. Plus with her being downstairs and all of our bedrooms upstairs, she can be as loud and rambunctious at night as she wants