Chinchillas
These guys like to be cool and dry.
Information | Care | Caging | Links | Shipping
Information
| Size: | A little bigger than a softball. They are however mostly fur. |
| Food: | Commercially available pellets, Mazuri are considered high quality, and Timothy hay. |
| Life Span: | Up to 15 years. |
| Habits: | Nocturnal like most rodents. These guys like to bathe in dust.
Most have friendly temperaments, but it is the only rodent I've ever heard growl. (Admittedly he had just gotten off a long plane ride so wasn't at his best.) |
Care
These guys are sociable and can live in groups, but it depends on the specific chinchilla. They should be kept below 80 F and drier than average. They can overheat quite easily. Most don't really like being held, but they do enjoy wandering around chinchilla proofed rooms for entertainment.
Caging
The minimum size has a 24" x 24" footprint, but bigger is always better. Height is more important than footprint. Chinchillas jump a lot and most people prefer to have a taller cage with different levels set up. Preferred shelves are kiln dried pine boards because they are easy to get and double as chewing surfaces that can be replaced. Most commercial cages have plastic shelves that chinchillas make short work of. Wire shelves and ramps are frowned upon as it is easy for them to get a leg caught in them. (Chinchillas should NEVER be housed in aquarium type cages as there is not enough air flow and overheating may be an issue.)
Bedding should be paper based or wood chips. I've seen conflicting info on pine shavings for these guys. Chinchillas can also be litter box trained a bit, no where near as well as a cat, but you can get them to mostly pee in a box.
You will need a heavy food bowl as these guys are hard on their stuff. I recommend a large water bottle, but you still have to change out the water every few days. They will need some kind of hide that you can expect them to chew. If not given enough to chew they will start dismantling their cage if they are able.
You will also need a dust bath, or at least a bowl a little bigger than your chinchilla and chinchilla dust. Several times a week you put some in the bowl and let the chinchilla roll around in it for as long as it wants. Don't leave the bowl in there, but give them maybe a 1/2 hour to roll. It will be extremely messy. There are commercial enclosed dust baths you can buy instead of just using a bowl.
Links
http://www.chinchillaplanet.com/
http://www.cachins.org/ -- California Chins
http://www.cheekychinchillas.com/ -- Cheeky Chinchillas
http://www.chincare.com/
Shipping
This section may seem random. In October of 2010 my sister was forced to ship her chinchilla and dog cross country. There wasn't any way around it beyond re homing the chinchilla or dog. That wasn't an option. I did plenty of searching for info on plane travel and chinchillas, and found not much useful information. I knew that every chinchilla in a pet store was at some point shipped, and they seemed to survive just fine. Everything I found online said to never do it, but beyond the chinchilla possibly overheating no one gave a reason.
Since we were shipping in October heat wasn't going to be a problem. My sister contacted Delta Cargo (The only company that was local to her) and they said she just needed a carrier and he had to have food, water and absorbent bedding and they could ship him. This was slightly more helpful than the internet. We assumed they had done at least some research so knew if chinchillas normally survived. They have plenty of dog breeds they weren't willing to ship due to complications.
Long story short the chinchilla is fine. He flew in a cat carrier with a towel and a bowl of food and water. It was an 8 hour flight. it was freaking cold the whole way and he was still fine. I've got to say Delta Cargo was good. They called us when the flight landed early and kept in touch through the whole thing. When we arrived to pick up it turns out they have a live shipment coordinator who's job is just to handle live animal shipping and make sure they get from one plane to the next and picked up. They had been the best choice.