garbo1

Alright, so you went into a pet shop, saw furball looking miserable and depressed in the cage, and decided you were it's saviour and wanted to take it home....STOP RIGHT THERE! - you don't even know what a chinchilla is, never mind take it home!, for goodness sake, we are still exotic furballs and not many of you humans have come across us lately ( pardon all those out there that have! ) so if you expect to take fluff's home with you - that's fine, but you must think seriously about it.

THINGS YOU MUST CONSIDER:

1. We live a long time (10 to 15 to even 20+ years or so! - but mainly about 12 years)

2. We do not like been cuddled too much (okay some of us guys do - but that's rare!)

3. Therefore, because we do not like cuddles, we do not like kids - young kids that is! (ages 0 - 10yrs.)

4. We are EXOTIC pets not your usual rumpy pumpy puppy OKAY? so don't buy a leash.

5. We like lot's of attention from humans - especially if you only want one of us.

6. We are sensitive creatures (oh yes we are!) so you must be a kind, patient and understanding human to 'bond' with us - that's a rule.

7. We.....er......well I can't think of anything just yet, but give me more time .......

THE BOOK

Of course, you will need a book! There is many chinchilla books out there in the right pet shops so the sooner you find one the better, the right book is brilliant for reference on practically everything a chinchilla PET owner needs and it's your utmost first duty to go get one before you rush out and get chinnie.

Visit ZEEBEE'S BOOKCHIN page on CHINSPOT for the latest information on books.
OR
You can visit Paul's site (chinchilla breeder judge and secretary of the NCS)
He has printed out a little booklet with all the good basic information you will need for your furball
check out his site here at - www.chillaquip.freeuk.com

Booklet shown here around £1.99
( UK only )

Now I'm not going to bore the socks off you with cage dimensions, but I will give you some good advice on good sized cages to buy.

If you can afford it, get the biggest cage you can accommodate for your pet, remember, he spends most of his waking hours in the cage when you're tucked up in bed at night. I recommend a cage size of 2ft high, 2ft depth and 3ft in length, that size is great for one chinchilla and even a pair would be happy too, with additional outside exercise on top.

Now, some humans out there are not keen on 'wire bottom' floors, there's a lot of horror stories about we chinnies getting our feet caught in the wires, that's true, but my owner doesn't mind wire bottom cages (including many other owners out there may I add) she says that as long as the wire is no more than 3/4" square it should be fine because, let's face it, we furballs jump round the SIDES of the cage as well and you can't 'box' us in with solid metal can you? - and as for creature comforts - a nice couple of shelves to sit on is all we ask, plus a home box of say...dimensions of 31x28x18 inches, and maybe a wheel, an exercise bike, couple of dumbbells, a hanger......okay, enough of my fantasies - back to basics! You don't have to restrict yourself to that size of cage, as mentioned, the bigger the better, there is some fancy cages out there on the net that humans have especially 'tailored' for their pets, if you're curious then here are some sites with cages that are different from the normal!
CUPPA-TEA SITE (click on the chinchilla icon on the home page to the view cages)

CHINBIN (with instructions on how to make it!)

OUR DARLING CHINCHILLAS (great idea)

CHINCHILLA WEB (A super large one with loads of branches)

My owner found a very good quality cage in England from 'Pets at home' - they have two cages for chinchillas at very reasonable prices, both the sizes as mentioned above and they come with a nice metal dish 'fixed' into the cage (we have the habit of throwing dishes about along with the food) and also a good quality water bottle with a rack to fix on the 'outside' of the cage (we have the habit of chewing bottles) the cage provides nice shelves for our comfort and play and made of untreated pine (we have the habit of chewing shelves).

Also, there is plenty of breeders of furballs out there that provide excellent cages of all dimensions and most can 'tailor make' for you! Visit TOFFI-NUT'S TRAVELS page at CHINSPOT, there is plenty of breeders there for you to check up on.

Here is a small photo example of two of our own cages, on the right is mine and Toffi-nut's cage, we have a 'double' sized cage as you can see all for ourselves, next door on the left is another 'double' sized cage (can be separated into two), this is our noisy neighbours Bunty, Kooky and Gemma's cage.

Note the gap between both cages, always make sure that if you have more than one chinnie and they are in separate cages, you must give us a 'detached' cage not a 'semi-detached' , if we are strangers to each other we will try to bite each others noses off if we can, so keep a good 4" to 6" distance between each cage.