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The Cage for a Chinchilla

December 23, 2009 by GuestPoster 

If you’re looking for a great pet to give your child or loved one for a birthday or other occasion, you should consider a chinchilla. Chinchillas are very loving animals which require care . The cage for a chinchilla should be large so your pet has room to roam around. The love they offer you can be a very heart-warming experience.

Since chinchillas are such a large rodent, they’ll need a large cage and plenty of things to chew on, as their teeth continuously grow. Having pieces of wood or wooden slats is a great for this, as they can chew as long as they need to do so. In addition, chinchillas love salt, so supplying a salt lick in addition to their normal food and water will make them happy.

Chinchillas tend to sleep mostly during the day, so you may think your pet isn’t very active. However, this simply isn’t true, as chinchillas are often nocturnal and move around the most at night. Providing a wheel for them to exercise in can be a great experience, but you’ll need to make sure its well oiled so it doesn’t wake you up at night while your pet is exercising!

Chinchillas also have special needs in that their fur is very fine, so they can’t get wet. If their fur gets wet, they could get pneumonia, which would cause death. In order to help keep your chinchilla clean, you’ll need to purchase finely ground pumice stone and place in the chinchilla cage for them to take dust baths. These dust baths help keep the chinchilla’s fur from getting extremely oily, and they also cut down on the number of parasites which are in the chinchilla’s fur.

Aside from all of these caring techniques, making sure you have a large enough chinchilla cage for your pet is very important. If you have the money, you may want to look in custom chinchilla cages.

Comments

One Response to “The Cage for a Chinchilla”

  1. Michelle on May 23rd, 2010 10:35 pm

    “If you’re looking for a great pet to give your child or loved one for a birthday or other occasion, you should consider a chinchilla.”

    This is HORRIBLE advice for several reasons. First of all, chinchillas are not great pets for children. They are fragile, and do not like to be cuddled. Secondly, suggesting that a chinchilla should be given as a gift is irresponsible. “Surprise! I just got you a 15 year commitment!” No pet should ever be given as a gift. Ever. Chinchillas require knowledge, care, and money. Giving a chinchilla to someone who is not prepared to deal with the work will result in a unhappy, neglected pet.

    Also, Chinchillas do not need salt licks. There is plenty of salt in their food, and too much sodium is bad for them as it is for us. Also, they need at least an hour a day out of cage to run around and get exercise but that was not mentioned in your post. Honestly, I hope no one reads your article because it is not very good advice.

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