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[Stephie23]

Just wondering what everyone does for their chins regarding play time or out of cage time?


We allow Belle to run around our dining and living area (supervised) for a while with access to her dust bath and a few toys as well as our legs to jump on and off of. She jumps up and down on the couch and uses a dining table chair to jump down from and back up on for access to her cage on a table.

Also I've heard many of you refer to the chin room. We keep Belle in the common area of our house. She seems happier when we don't have her separated from us. She sleeps well during the day in her wooden house and comes out from time to time to eat, interact and then goes back to sleep. She doesn't seem to complain much about anything.

[GrayRodent]

I usually let mine run in the bathroom when I let him run because I am able to make it chin safe. The room where his cage is in is not safe for him to roam in because there are many cables and power cords and materials that are not safe for him to chew. I don't like to let him roam in other rooms because I am afraid he might chew a lamp cord and get electrocuted like others I've seen on this board.

Since I pretty much live and work in the room his cage is in it is not a problem. That and his cage is gigantic and gives him lots of room to run around although he usually doesn't do that except for late at night. When he is fully grown I will get a wheel for him to run on as well.

When I take a break from the computer I'll open the cage and play with my chin there or sit down and play with him while not letting him jump off. It has been hard training my chinchilla to do that without me having to restrain him but there is progress. He is getting used to sitting still on my shoulder like a parrot.

[Stephie23]

I usually let mine run in the bathroom when I let him run because I am able to make it chin safe. The room where his cage is in is not safe for him to roam in because there are many cables and power cords and materials that are not safe for him to chew. I don't like to let him roam in other rooms because I am afraid he might chew a lamp cord and get electrocuted like others I've seen on this board.

Since I pretty much live and work in the room his cage is in it is not a problem. That and his cage is gigantic and gives him lots of room to run around although he usually doesn't do that except for late at night. When he is fully grown I will get a wheel for him to run on as well.

When I take a break from the computer I'll open the cage and play with my chin there or sit down and play with him while not letting him jump off. It has been hard training my chinchilla to do that without me having to restrain him but there is progress. He is getting used to sitting still on my shoulder like a parrot.

I'm seriously impressed that your chin sits on your shoulder. I think Belle is trying to get closer to that point. She will walk up on my chest and play with my hair when her cage door is open and I'm standing there. She likes to nibble at my necklaces and earrings and plays with the zippers on my jackets. She won't sit still for too long though. She just happened to run up in my lap last night as we were encouraging her to go back in her cage so I got a few cuddles and some time to get my hands on her and check out how she was doing. I don't like having to catch her while in her cage, FOR ANYTHING, because it takes days to get her to trust me again.

[GrayRodent]

My new chinchilla doesn't usually sit still very long on my shoulder either if I am being still. If I am walking around he'll usually stay up there. Sometimes I'll take him to the kitchen and fix myself a cup of coffee with him up there. Lately he has picked up a bad habit of crawling into my pullover that I usually wear in the mornings. Like you say, he'll go for the zipper and whatever he can chew on. I just keep picking him up and putting him back on my shoulder and keep prying him away when he gets to chewing. Sometimes he'll be very calm and other times he won't stay still for anything. Animals are like that though.

With my first untamed chinchilla there were a couple of things I did to get him used to being handled. He would fight and bite me if I tried to restrain him and he did not want to be touched for any reason so at least you are ahead there.

I used a shoebox or plastic container and put it at the opening of the cage. Usually he'd jump in on his own but sometimes I'd have to force it. Then I would take him out of the cage and sit with him in an enclosed shower stall and let him play. Because it is such a confined place there was no way he could really avoid me. I let him play for about 20-30 minutes and interrupted him periodically to work with him. I had to think ahead to prevent startling him. Once he was not easily startled there when I would touch him or pet him I could work with him in his cage.

It was kind of like starting the process over but it went faster. In about three weeks of working like this every day I could handle him fairly easily and he was less jumpy. Most importantly I could pick him up without getting chewed up or having him jump away when I would reach into the cage.

[mb30]

we keep ours in the dining room and use a cardboard box as a step up to her cage. she has the whole dining room and the hallway leading to the dining room as well as the living room and stairs and main upstairs bedroom to run free around. luckily she isnt a big chewer of skirting boards or wires. always supervised and rooms cleaned and vaccumed everyday to make sure nothing is on the floors or under the couches.

[GrayRodent]

That's cool and I wish I could do that. We have a very large open place with a lot of furniture since two families live here. Sometimes it's not easy to find him if he manages get away from us. Although we vacuum every day and keep the floor clean we can't really keep up with our parrot and our toddler to perfection. Sometimes our toddler finds the things the chin leaves behind when he gets loose and she dutifully hands them to me.

Last night I held my chinchilla for about 10 minutes with both hands and he was content there. Usually he doesn't stay that calm for that long when being restrained like that but he was very relaxed. Usually I put him in a soda box (that you get 12 cans of soda in and you can tear out a section of the box to dispense the cans) and let him play in the box next to me on the couch. When he climbs out the hole in the front I'll briefly hold him and then put him back. This is another good way to play with a chinchilla.

[mb30]

Yeah, I imagine it would be quite a different story of I had any children yet. At times I feel a tad bit guilty that we have a animal like that in a cage so I tend to give her the most space I can.

It is a joy to observe the chinchilla running and playing and listenening to the different sounds she makes. I wish mine would let me hold her like that. It's nice that she comes running to me when a sound from outside startles her. It has taken quite some time to earn that trust....she came from a little pet shop and who knows how they handled her.

Sometimes she will go to the top level if the cage and stand at the opening. I'll hokd my hands out flat to her and she will jump on my hands and then i'll lower her to the floor like an elevator and she'll bolt back into her cage and up to the top to do it again  She seens to really like that haha.

[Elle2005]

Peaches lives in the study, my other half or & I open her cage after dinner time and let her out for an hour or so, one of us sits in the study too just in case & to keep her company. She likes it if you lie down so that she can use your bum as a trampoline... Cheeky thing. She also likes to climb up us to get to higher shelves on the book case or get onto the forbidden desk... She's worked out that if she jumps onto the radiator (it's on really low, don't worry hah) and then she can get onto the desk, where she perches and looks at us as if to say 'but I'm not on the forbidden desk, I can see some paper in the printer that looks like it could do with a nibble.' Oh well, she likes it up there, what can you do.
Peaches also likes her bunny castle, if you put it against a wall, she'll wiggle herself behind it and go inside, then jump out as if you couldn't have possibly seen her go in. She likes the Argos catalogue though, her favourite chewing page is the one with hairdryers on it? Any other page and she just stares at you.
She does have quite a lot of toys, but at play time she seems to prefer interacting with us and getting stroked and running in and out of her cage, taking toys in and out as she pleases. But woe betide if you even try to pick her up, she bolts. Can't really blame her though, don't think I'd like to be picked up.

[Jessica Williams]

The dining room table maybe too high up for your chinchilla. Text me from experience you do not want them to end up breaking their foot or their leg. It is not fun to have to amputate and see your poor baby chinchilla go through that. Yes there are many things you can do. Sometimes I left mine run around the room however I learned the hard way also that they can get into even the tiniest spaces. Shortly after I got my first chinchilla 4 years ago, she went and found a spot to hide and was lost for 12 hours. It was not fun thinking that I had lost her. So make sure she is in a small confined space with absolutely no place for him or her to hide. You can also use simple cardboard boxes as a way for them to have something to run and jump on. They are paper products so they will to them but its very expensive and they have more fun with that then an expensive toy or wooden jumping stone you could buy for them. Now that I have a new apartment I actually have a child gate across my steps and I left the chinchillas run and jump on the steps. Since they are originally from the Andes Mountains in South America had a naturally love to jump on different levels so this works out well for me. I hope this helps.

[GrayRodent]

My cage has a shelf that is 30" off the floor which is about the same height as my desk. My chin will sometimes jump straight up onto it and off of it repeatedly at night and has never had any problems from that. How did yours get injured?

I know that another potential problem with letting chins run in a furnished room is electrical cords. I used to have a pet rabbit that damaged several lamp cords while (thankfully!) the lamps were off. We discovered the damage after we found out why one lamp wouldn't turn on and discovered he had mangled the cords on two other lamps as well. It was actually a hazard to everyone because the bare wires were exposed.  If those ever shorted out there could have been a fire. We didn't let the rabbit roam on the floor after that. I know of two chins that were killed from electrocution. It is not always an instant death either. So please be very careful.