Shelf pee'er

[Godofgods]

Is their any way to discourage this?
It seems one of my boys has become a shelf pee'er as of late. And its always in front of the hay container. He'll go on the shelf then pull the hay on top. (usaly the hay they wont eat, which is a lot anymore)

 

[Airyn]

My girls used to do that when their cage was dirty. I seemed to think that 6-7 days was fine since they had so much space, but they wanted 4-5. I changed my cage cleaning schedule and it fixed the problem. Might be worth a shot.

 

[ticklechin]

Tile the shelf for easy clean up.

 

[Godofgods]

tile it?

 

[ChinnyMom]

get a chiller tile and put it on the 'pee shelf'. make sure the edge of the tile does not extend past the edge of the shelf, since that could pose a hazard where the tile may flip or slide off the shelf.

 

[Anfsurfer]

I'm sorry you're having this problem. I know how MISERABLE it is. My boy sometimes did it numerous times a day! It would run off the shelf and down to other parts of the cage. It was so frustrating because it has to be dealt with immediately, so cage cleaning was a task I was performing many times a day.

Let me tell you my observation as to why it was happening, and what I did to resolve it. Shadowfax is in a Quality Cage Chinchilla Mansion. I used the four full length shelves that came with the cage in the cage design. He had a few sleeping places throughout the height of the cage. I observed he was doing it out of convenience. Instead of going all the way down to the bottom of his cage to pee, he would just back out of where he was sleeping and pee. Or if he was just hanging out on one of the longer shelves, he would back up a few steps and pee.

I was seriously at my wits end. So how I resolved it was to take away ALL the long shelves, and replace his cage with only 6" X 6" shelves, and NO sleeping places above ground level. He still gets all the exercise of jumping around, but he won't pee on a shelf he doesn't have the room to move aside on. That's it plain and simple. He hasn't pee'd a shelf since I made this change. Good luck!

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

I have one boy that pee's on his shelves like CRAZY. I put a glass dish with some wood shavings in it and every now and then, he'll use that, but will still pee on the shelf. I haven't a clue why he does it. Gave up trying.

Was driving myself mad over it. haha

 

[Godofgods]

Honestly, it isn't THAT hes doing it thats irritating me. Its the location. Its directly under where they pull their hay to. Which makes it get covered a bit. Fortunately (?) its usually the hay they wont eat.

Hes in a Ferret Nation cage, with the two standard shelves it comes with. But the top floor one has his hut on it. And the hut is the full size of the shelf with a fleece liner, and fleece pillow. So he has the hut to sleep in. Theirs also space on the bottom tray he likes to sleep in the open some times. But 99% of the time he climbs into the fleece liner from the bottom like a hammock. Even over the actual hammock. So theirs plenty of places he can sleep.

The bedding is changed when ever its needed. And the shelf is just one jump away from bedding on the bottom tray.

The only real motive i can think of, is that my boys are disregarding like 80% of their hay. They'll go to town on a fresh batch, but they pick and chose, and disregard at a very high rate. Highest iv seen years with 5 chins. Maybe him peeing on the disregarded pile is a message lol.

I could try the chiller their, but that worries me a bit. They are known to move that thing around when they feel like it. And since its on a shelf the weight of the chiller would be or concern if they try to throw it over the edge.