Chinchilla Community Forums
Chinchillas => General Chat => Topic started by: mike on August 31, 2014, 08:17:03 PM
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Hello everyone. about 3 weeks ago, I bought a 3 month old female black velvet chin. My question is, how long should I let my chin run round outside of her cage ? I let her run around out of her cage for at least an hour and a half each night, when i go to put her back in her cage (which is very difficult to do by the way) she stays by the cage door begging to come out and play. Am I giving her enough time out of her cage ? Thanks for your advice ;)
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I wouldn't go longer than two hours at a time. She will need access to her food after that. A three month old chinchilla is also going to be very playful and energetic and eventually will slow down. An hour a day is a decent amount of time for a chinchilla with a good cage setup.
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Also, be aware of the temperature in the room. A chin can very easily overheat if running around outside the cage. Im at 67 degrees here and i only let mine run for 10 minutes at a time...one of my chins is at full speed always and she will defintely get heat stroke if her outside play time is not managed.
If you have a rug you could roll it up so it maked a tunnel. Once the chin goes inside cap both ends with your hands and then put one end in the cage. I find this to be the least stressful way of getting my chins back in their cage if they dont go in on their own.
Although, one of them has learned whats going in and will rarely go into the tunnel now. So i put one end in the cage and one end on this ottoman we have and her natural curiosity gets her in every time hah.
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because of a time issue, i try to do at least half hour, but i will also go up to an hour. i hear a lot of people say they try to keep them out for about an hour.
jean