Chinchillas As Pets
Can One Keep Chinchillas As Pets?
There are a few things you should know before deciding whether to keep chinchillas as pets. They do make very good pets, but require some special care and feeding that you need to be aware of. There's no arguing that they are extremely cute and cuddly, but cute and cuddly by itself isn't always a good reason to have a pet in the house.
When you bring an animal into your home to have as a pet, you have an obligation to see that it gets proper care and attention. Chinchillas as pets are no different. Being exotic pets, they can be high maintenance, though not excessively so. They do have rather specific dietary requirements, and a rather unusual way of cleansing themselves, so you'll need to deal with those two things. In addition, chinchillas have a rather long life span for a small animal. A chinchilla as a house pet can be expected to live 15 years if well cared for, and perhaps a bit longer. Give a pet chinchilla to a first grader, and it will still be around when she is getting ready to graduate from college. The message being, when you take one of these animals into your home, you'll want to be thinking far ahead.
While chinchillas are rodents, they cannot get along well on a diet that most other rodents would thrive on. You cannot feed a chinchilla commercially prepared rabbit food. The fact is, chinchillas prefer what horses prefer, hay! Getting a bale of hay might not be the best approach, it might be better to get a supply of hay pellets for your pet chinchilla, but hay is what they eat. The other thing you need to be aware of is that chinchillas love to take dust baths. You don't bathe a chinchilla with water. That isn't good for it. In their natural habitats, chinchillas take a daily dust bath, in dust from volcanic ash. Dust collects dirt and oils from their extremely thick fur coats. Water cannot penetrate the fur enough to have any cleansing effect, plus if you have a wet chinchilla you may have a problem. Chinchillas as pets will be quite at home bathing in a glass bowl, containing some commercially prepared chinchilla bathing dust.
Chinchillas are small animals but please don't confine them to small cages. They are very energetic, and need room to move around. A large cage, with several levels (they can jump nearly 5 vertical feet), an exercise wheel, and some wooden toys they can chew on (preferably pine, definitely not citrus or cedar), will make a good home for a chinchilla. Be prepared to let them out once in awhile to run around. You may need to do some chinchilla-proofing, as they will chew on most anything chew able.
If you plan on handling them or holding them, it's best to start when they are very young. Chinchillas as pets are friendly and quite docile, but may not like to be handled or held if they aren't used to it. Get one upset enough and it may spray you with urine. That's their means of self defense. If they are happy and well cared for, that's unlikely to happen.
Oh, there's one more thing you probably should be aware of. Chinchillas are crepuscular. Sounds scary, but all it means is that they're active mostly during the late evenings and early mornings, and not so much during the day. They might not make the very best pets as far as entertaining you in the afternoon is concerned.