By Katrina E. Housel
As published on her website www.geocities/chinchillasrcute.com
Taming and Training Your Chinchilla
Chinchillas are very clever, intelligent animals with a strong will of their own. However, with training, chinchillas can learn to urinate in a litter pan, to come out of the cage to you, and follow a few simple commands. The best treats to use are raisins. To make the raisins last, cut them into the smallest sections you can. Only feed 1-2 raisins a day to prevent diarrhea.
Litter training:
Not all chinchillas learn how to use a litter box. It is a skill best taught to chinchillas when they are very young. To start, put your chinchilla in a cage with bedding on the floor. When it urinates in an area, scoop up the wet bedding with a spoon and put it in the litter box. Put the litter box near the wet area. Whenever you look at your chinchilla, move all the wet bedding to the litter pan. When you have to change the litter and bedding, this time don't put bedding on the floor and take a scoop of the wet litter to save. Change the rest of the litter, and then put the wet litter on the new litter. After a few months of this, your chinchilla should choose to go in its litter pan instead of elsewhere. Never use cat litter in the litter pan.
Coming out of the cage:
When you first get a chinchilla, you must try to IGNORE it for the first few days (don't neglect it, just don't try to touch the chin). Try to keep the chin up high in a dark, quiet room with a dark hiding box. When the chinchilla is comfortable with your presence, you can put your fingers into the cage. Feed treats from your fingers. Next you can put your hand in the cage. Keep it as still as possible with your palm up (No touching!) and let your chinchilla investigate you. Put a treat on the palm of your hand and feed it to the chinchilla. If at any time your animal is uncomfortable, go back to the previous step. Remember this process does not happen overnight. When your chinchilla is comfortable with your hand, put treats higher up on your arm. It should hop right on to you to get the treat. Never force your chinchilla to take its treat. Another good way to get your chin out of his/her cage is to let it get so comfortable with your hand that you can slip your hand under the chin's belly and lift it up. This prevents escaping as well. The worst way to get a chinchilla out is to chase it around the cage. This will make your chin distrustful.
Nose kisses, come, and other commands:
Unlike a dog, a chinchilla does not respond readily to commands. However, you can teach it to do some actions as long as you are patient and gentle. Don't expect fast results; all training will take months to accomplish.
Nose kissing steps:
1) Have your chinchilla cage/body tame. (See above)
2) Loosely hold a raisin section between your teeth.
3) Get your mouth near your chin's nose and gently breathe the scent of it to them.
4) They will eat it out of your mouth.
5) Every time you want to feed a treat, feed it with your mouth.
6) Feed it to them in many different locations and they will give spontaneous nose kisses looking for raisins. Its fun when the first thing they do coming out of the cage is kiss you!
Come or other commands:
1) Have your treats readily available.
2) Move your chinchilla through the desired motion. For example, with "come," it is the chin hopping up to you. Be gentle in moving your chinchilla through the motion. Show it a visual signal and say a word ("come!") for your animal to associate with the action.
3) Give a treat after moving your chin through the motion.
4) Repeat steps 2 & 3 at least 10 times.
5) Let your chin free in a small, chinproof area. Say the word and do the visual signal.
6) Repeat the signal/word until the chinchilla obeys by itself.
7) When it finally obeys, give a large treat. Let it loose to try it again.
8) Repeat steps 6 & 7 until it obeys every time. Don't run your chinchilla ragged and do all the steps in one night. Remember that this will take months to accomplish.
|
|
