Sticky Urine

[Godofgods]

As far as chinchillas in general, it seems there always has to be a trouble maker in the village.

:hilarious: I just wouldn't have thought it to be him tho. Hes the only one that doesn't usually cause me problems, but he has all the health issues it seems. Everyone else looooves to keep me on my toes, and there all fine'
make you wonder..

Houdini was born in October of 2010. So he is about 3.5 years old now.

I had to create an account there to be allowed to read that article. But it was an interesting read. I wouldn't have thought of something like that.
If i soak the hay do i have to dry it before i can feed it to them? Because i cant use an over here. I can in about a month or so when i move tho (assuming i don't set it on fire or something)

 

[ticklechin]

I would guess you just air dry it? Dry it off with a towel? That is what I would do, with the little knowledge I have, LOL.

 

[Chinmama]

You can get the Critter Be Better in pellet or powder form, and it's really just to help with digestion. They can both have it, and you wouldn't need to use very much. I would just add a sprinkle on top of the regular pellets. It would really just need to be used during the initial switch and wouldn't have to be a long term thing.

APD's shipping is crazy high, so you may also want to check out Amazon for the timothy pellets.

 

[Godofgods]

Thank you all for the information. :bow:

I just got done feeding my chins. Gave them regular hay today but put some in a container to soak for a few hours. Then ill let it dry over night. Ill admit im curios to see how that will work. And ill grab some orchard hay when im at the store next as well.

I just checked the shipping after reading that comment. You are most definitely right. A bag of 2.75lbs food and 4oz of the critter powder was $20.78 and shipping is $18-19 0.0 :wacko:

 

[Godofgods]

I got the food and powder off amazon. I would have rathyer gotten it from AMD but that shipping is just to much. They said they are about 30 miles from a post office and those shipping options listed were the only ones they have.

I tried soaking some hay for about 12 hours. I watched the water change colors a few times. Its been about two days now tho and its still not dried. So i imagine you need either an area where you can spread it out loosely under good sun light, or an oven dry method.
Would still like to know how they do that without destroying product in the oven. I might be able to use that method in a few weeks.

 

[Godofgods]

yea... that hay still isn't dry...
I don't think air dry is an efficient method here..

 

[ticklechin]

I wonder if you put it in a mesh bag and tossed it in the dryer?

 

[Godofgods]

It finally dried yesterday. So around 5-6 days or such for one handful.
Tho i don't think my boys touched any of it :/

Tho they wernt touching to much of the orchard grass either

 

[mscreampoof]

I found that my chinchilla (8 y.o) is having some sticky urine too. Almost all of the time her urine just slightly stains the fleece I have covering her pans. But there would be some tiny spots where it would be a tiny bit sticky when dried. I wonder if this is because the fleece isnt soaking up as fast and it just dries like that?

 

[Godofgods]

Well my guys wernt eating much of there hay to start with. Even with the orchard grass. I finally got the APD food and have been mixing that in with the regular food to ween em off it. (Using that powder too). - Well they clearly do not care for the APD pellets much. So much that they are eating there regular food, then eating all the hay, then if they have to... they might touch the APD...

 

[ticklechin]

Got to love chins, their pickyness never ceases to amaze!

 

[Godofgods]

oh it just gets better'

now that they are eating they hay again because they are trying to avoid the APD food, i tried give them just the western timothy without any orchard grass. They still went through it pretty good.

 

[Chinmama]

Ha! All you had to do was spend some money unnecessarily, and the eating problem is solved.

 

[ticklechin]

HAHAHAH, I don't mean to laugh but it is funny!

 

[Godofgods]

Now they are just getting strange...

I just got them on full APD pellets. With my moving i didn't want to over stress them so i kept the two food combined for a while longer to make sure they were eating.

They are still not thrilled with the pellets, and still going through all the hay first. But ive noticed something a little bit odd with my two boys. The cage has two boys and two food dishes. Each dish gets 2tbls of pellets a day. (Measuring allows me to more easily notice when they are eating more or less then normal.) They seem to eat all the pellets out of one bowl and not touch the other one at all. If i leave that bowl and only add more to the empty one its the same thing. They eat the new food and leave the other bowl alone.

So i tried switching it up. I dumped that older food into the other bowl they were using and put new food in the one they were ignoring. ... And they switched bowls. Still ate the new food, ignored the older food.

So i emptied them both. New food in each bowl. They ate all of one bowl and ignored the other. And proceeded to ignore that one set of food all over again. (And its all the same food, same batch, same everything.)

Its like they randomly pick out a bowl to ignore each time i feed them. Goofy chins...