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[memechan1990]

About two weeks about I adopted a chinchilla, a friend could no longer take care of. I did research before hand and honestly thought I was very prepared. I would like to make a note that I have had a lot of animals; cats, dogs, hamsters, birds, rats, hedgehogs, etc. So I am not incapable of taking care of my animals but I suffer from pretty bad anxiety which begins the problem. Even when my room is at 75 degrees I have pretty extreme attacks and I don't know what to do. I literally cannot sleep or eat because I am so concerned over the fact that my chinchilla could die of heatstroke when I am asleep or away from my room and I honestly do not what to do anymore.

[dianah]

so you know that the temperature is right and that's good. perhaps it would help for you to know what the signs of overheating are? knowing that your chinchilla doesn't have them could be comforting. the first thing you'd notice on a chinchilla who's too hot is that their ears go red (some colours have pink ears though and that's normal) and are warm to touch. this is because they get rid of excess heat by pumping blood into their ears.
this happens even when you hold them for a little while and they get warmer. my mae loves being warm and is a sickly girl so often has a heat pad in her cage - she sits on it and when she gets too warm, jumps off but her ears are super warm.
if your chinchilla is happy, eating, active, pooping, all should be ok.

is there a cooling stone in the cage? this could give you a piece of mind - it's a bit of a backup plan!

have i made this any better at all?