Author: Debra J. Housel
of Chinchilla Lover's Haven
So You Want to Litter Train Your Chinchilla
I think it's a good idea to litter train your chinchilla if you want your cage to stay cleaner and smell better. However, in my experience it must be done when the chin is young or s/he will never learn.
Two of our three chins are potty trained. We got the girl at two years of age, and she just doesn't get it (probably due to age). When our two boys were about three months old, here's what I did:
1. I got a medium-sized triangular litter pan which hooks onto the cage. The hamster ones are too small, and the rabbit ones are too big. Look for the in-between size.
2. I put the litter pan in the corner they seemed to be urinating in most often. I filled the pan with aspen pellets. You can also safely use Carefresh, Cell Sorb, or All Pine. DO NOT USE CAT LITTER. If a chin eats cat litter (which is designed to clump), it can result in intestinal impaction and death!!
3. I took a piece of peed-on paper from the bottom of the cage and put it underneath the aspen pellets. One chin immediately started to go in the pan. It took him only three days to train. In fact, he will return to his cage during play time just to pee, and then come back out to continue playing!
4. For the first three months, every time I replaced the litter, I took a teaspoon of peed-on litter and put it on top of the fresh litter so they'd remember that that's where they were to go.
5. One of the boys needed a long time to litter train. It took six
months for him to go consistently in the pan I also had to have two (small) litter boxes in the cage so that each boy can use his own; the one refused to train until he had his very own box.
I don't know if my chin, ChiChi, is extraordinarily intelligent, but one day he was playing outside his cage. The doors of the cage were closed. He wanted to get back in but I was busy, and my son—who was watching him and didn't want him to stop playing--didn't open the door. We had brand new carpeting (less than a week old!) and a couch in the room. Frantically, ChiChi looked around for a place to relieve himself. He spied a heating pad lying on the couch. He jumped up on it and peed. I was beyond astonished. He picked the only thing in the room to pee on that I could easily remove and toss in the washer!
Even once litter trained, accidents will invariably happen. For those of you who are new chin owners, their urine is a dark yellow, almost a brown color. If your chin has an accident on your carpeting, be sure to immediately use an absorbent cloth to press down on the wet spot. The cloth will absorb the urine, which is better than scrubbing it. Club soda works well for removing any stain.
Remember that even though you can litter train a chin for urine, there is no way to litter train a chin for poops. They defecate unconsciously; they're not even aware that they are doing it.
Good luck with your litter training!
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