When should you get rid of wood?

[starrynight0621]

I bought all of these expensive thick pieces of wood for my chins. They chew the bark off, and I am not sure if they ever touch them again.

I would hate to throw them away because they were expensive and it's a waste of good wood...

 

[Twilight Chinchillas]

That's pretty much what a lot of chinchillas do, chew the bark off and all done, some if your lucky will chew them down to toothpicks. How long has the bark been chewed off? Normally I put wood in there and at the end of the week when cage cleaning it gets tossed. By then they have gotten as much use as they are going to get out of it. Yes, wood is not cheap, but one of the cons to having a chin, is the expense, but in all honestly they are worth every penny!

Wanted to add to save on cost, get the twigs or thin sticks, less waste!

 

[AZChins]

This may sound bad, but this is what I do!

Most of the wood I give my chins I have in hanging toys. I just keep the wood pieces on a cage's hanging toy until it is gone. Sometimes I will rotate the toys to a nearby cage where the chins are less picky. I only really get rid of the wood when it gets wet or dirty and then it must be removed...at that point it goes into plastic bins and ends up in the wood stove to heat the house in the winter.

Anyway, maybe you could try drilling these pieces and hanging them on a wire for a hanging toy? That way they stay up off the floor of the cage and are less likely to get soiled or wet.

 

[Twilight Chinchillas]

Not bad Susan, SMART! When you have more than a couple, you do what you gotta do. I've done so too, but wish we had a functioning fireplace!
Yeah, larger pieces are best on a toy, I don't throw those out, but if you are going to give them wood to throw into the cage, stick to small stuff!

 

[ChinnyMom]

i've been meaning to use kool aid to dye wood that has been de-barked, just haven't gotten around to it yet. Rhino likes the dyed/flavoured wood pieces from petsmart, so i'm thinking kool-aiding his debarked wood would renew his interest in it. Guss doesn't care for those dyed pieces, but maybe he'll like the home made kool aid ones instead.

 

[AZChins]

Right now, as we speak, there are the little cores from the ocotillo wood littering the floor because I handed it out this morning and the chins removed the bark and threw the pieces on the floor. I'm guessing that with this wood I will have to put it on the hanging toys or I will never be able to walk into the chinnie rooms in my socks ever again.

I'm actually going to pick up the cores and put them in the cages at the bottom of the racks that have five or six chins in them. Those chins aren't picky at all and there's so much toy competition that they will chew on anything just to get it away from their cagemates. They'll grab a piece and hide with it for five minutes until it has been fully disassembled. Chins...

 

[Dewdrop]

I toss all the wood when I clean the cage. Once it's been debarked my boys won't touch it anyhow.

 

[Crys12065]

I was just thinking the same thing when I cleaned the chins cages last night and saw all the wood in there. I just keep throwing it back in but now maybe I will toss it. there is quite the pile in there, lol

 

[starrynight0621]

Thank you for all of your helpful advice! I will just use the big pieces for toys now.

 

[BeginnerChinLover]

My one girl will SOMETIMES chew the entire whirlie to nothing...but more often than not they will both leave it after the bark is gone. I agree with Twilight Chinchillas about getting small sticks Works wonders!! I don't find many smaller ones hanging around..they normally eat the whole thing.

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

This may sound bad, but this is what I do!

Most of the wood I give my chins I have in hanging toys. I just keep the wood pieces on a cage's hanging toy until it is gone. Sometimes I will rotate the toys to a nearby cage where the chins are less picky. I only really get rid of the wood when it gets wet or dirty and then it must be removed...at that point it goes into plastic bins and ends up in the wood stove to heat the house in the winter.

Anyway, maybe you could try drilling these pieces and hanging them on a wire for a hanging toy? That way they stay up off the floor of the cage and are less likely to get soiled or wet.

I do pretty much the same thing. I give them a few pieces of wood as toss toys which gets changed out regularly, other than that mine get cardboard bagels, vine items, shredders, loofah etc etc etc, as toss toys. Then their hanging toys are a mix. I leave the wood on them, after about 2 weeks, I will refill them by simply putting some new wood on them, and leaving some of the old wood.

Then like for my boy Gizmo, who LOVES cardboard bagels, I'll stick a bagel bitty between two whirlies, so he has to chew the whirlies to get to the bagel. =)

 

[ChinnyMom]

I'll stick a bagel bitty between two whirlies, so he has to chew the whirlies to get to the bagel. =)

ok, tell Rhino he has to chew the whirlies to get to the bagel bite, lol! i made up a few toys not long ago, and each of my boys got one toy with a bagel bite sandwiched between a couple large whirlies. Rhino completely ignored the whirlies and proceeded to decimate the bagel bite to nothing. he could barely get to it and was pushing against the whirlies (which were apple wood) to get at that yummy lil circle...... next morning the whirlies were still untouched and the bagel bite was in shreds on the cage floor, lol.

 

[Anfsurfer]

My boys will pretty much make the pencil sized sticks disappear. But with the thicker "Whirlie" size, they're only interested in stripping the bark off.

 

[greychins]

The thin (and I mean THIN) sticks mine will turn to sawdust, but the rest of the wood gets drilled and strung up on hanging chew toys. And if they chew it so that it falls off the hanging toy but it's still a big enough piece to be drilled... I will drill another hole and re-string it back up next time I'm re-filling chew toys. Over the course of years, with all the different rescues that come through here, the wood does get chewed down. But my pets are the stinkers - they will eat the bark and nothing else, it's the rescues that pretty much devour the rest...

 

[Godofgods]

I have two completely different sides of this with my chins. My boys and girls are separated in to two different cages. Right now i cant afford much treats for them, but i did have some left over wood form a while back that i used to make their huts with. So i took a piece that was about an inch wide or so, and cut some pieces off. Around the size of a finger~.

I gave one to each of my two boys. And i gave one to each of my three girls. (I gave it to them at night) When i came out the next morning i found the boys didn't chew them all to much. Some but not much.
The girls on the other hand, had shredded them things so much that i didn't recognize them for a while! I thought they were just pieces of the aspen litter i use lol. I was amazed when i finally realized that they were the pieces of wood i gave them lol.

And it was just poplar wood. No bark, no treat or anything...
Of course.. i have some jealous girls. So it might have just been to keep it away form the others lol. It never matters what they have, it matter what the other one has!!

 

[Chinchilla City]

The longest I have kept wood on toys is about a year. I found this awesome bird toy on clearance for $2 with huge 2" thick manzanita sticks on it. It would've lasted longer than the chin but I threw it away because it was in a female's cage that occasionally sprayed and it did not occur to me that I could clean it.

Right now, my boys have a wood house covered in bark that is 2 maybe 2.5 years old; it's been cleaned a few times. They also have hanging apple wood and manzanita remnants that doesn't look like it's been touched in some time, usually I just rearrange the toys and add something new to them. Wood that gets tossed in the cage loose gets thrown out after about a week or two if there is any left but they are on wire cage so sometimes it falls through the floor. Recently the boys are shedding a lot so I did throw out some hairy wood.

I think I may try flavoring their apple wood this weekend and then throw on a couple new pieces.

 

[ticklechin]

I am wasteful and they are grateful, LOL, they get new toys twice a month and new sticks daily. I don't buy anything for myself, just for them.

 

[x3ndless]

the bags i buy come with a mixture of both small and large, my chin will chew the bark off of the applewood. I think the bark is more of a treat then a chew toy to her. She will just chew the unbarked stick to get her teeth good. But I test every unbarked stick with her, if she dosen't look away and even starts chewing it i keep it in for a while. If she turns her head to go do something else then i toss it. But like everyone else was saying end of the week just toss them away.

 

[xtoff]

I like to make hippie stix treats with the wasted wood. I boil and bake the debarked wood sticks to get them clean again especially if they've been sitting on the cage floor.

I use food processor to blend steel cut oats, oxbow pellets & hay bits from the bottom of the bag to a powder. add enough filtered water to make a paste and cover one end of the stick. sprinkle in rose hips and bake low and slow.

**EDIT**

should have also mentioned that after making the hippie stix they'll usually chew the leftover sticks to almost nothing... must be the baked in goodness?

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

I like to make hippie stix treats with the wasted wood. I boil and bake the debarked wood sticks to get them clean again especially if they've been sitting on the cage floor.

I use food processor to blend steel cut oats, oxbow pellets & hay bits from the bottom of the bag to a powder. add enough filtered water to make a paste and cover one end of the stick. sprinkle in rose hips and bake low and slow.

**EDIT**

should have also mentioned that after making the hippie stix they'll usually chew the leftover sticks to almost nothing... must be the baked in goodness?

Well, I never thought of that. Very cleaver.