Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

I was curious if those handprint- preserving kits made for babies are safe to use with chinchillas. Also, I'd like to save some of the fur Doodle sheds naturally as a keepsake almost, but I'm worried that this is gross or weird. Any thoughts?

[GrayRodent]

It's interesting you mention that. I actually collect chinchilla whiskers when they shed. I just think they are interesting. I used to do the same thing with cat whiskers when we had three cats but those were very unusual to find. Kulu will usually shed his in his dust bath. I'm thinking of making a small bristle brush out of them if I get enough to do that. My mom thinks that is really gross but it's just hair. I think I might have one or two of Blue's whiskers in the stack.

It's interesting that you mention the preserving clay because my veterinarian used that when they euthanized Blue, my first chinchilla that had malocclusion. My clay cast is bright neon pink and they put an imprint of the front paws on one side and the back paws on the other. I was kind of in shock to receive that and found it so amusing that I almost cracked up at the desk. I strongly suspect it was taken post-mortem but I don't think it would be a problem for a live chinchilla as long as none of it gets eaten. The hard part is going to get him to stay still enough to get a clean print and that might not be possible. I think that kind of thing is "non-toxic" but check on the box to be sure. It must be a consistency that will not leave a residue or stick. If it does you'll probably need to wash it off with water. I don't know exactly what product they used or I would recommend it for that. It is bright neon pink and some kind of air drying polymer clay.

Now that is something I thought was kind of weird and creepy but I keep it in my desk drawer as a conversation piece. You may want to lacquer it with something when you're done. The cast I have did not dry very hard.

[Morrigancharm]

On my facebook site, I have posts of tattoos that people have done of their chinchilla's footprints. They have come up with some creative ways to get the footprints on paper. The best one yet, was to use watered down food coloring. They took a large piece of paper and "painted" a large swath of coloring on the middle and then allowed their chins to run around on it and track the prints all over the paper. The food coloring is safe, it is what most people use to color wood anyway. Then, after each chin, she circled and labeled the prints for each one. The end product was a large paper with many different prints all over it, but she had successfully labeled each chin's individual prints by doing them each separately. It was a neat affect overall! Chin-Art!

[GrayRodent]

That totally gave me an idea. It's not too difficult to use a flatbed scanner on a tame chinchilla's feet. The rest of him moved around so it was a little blurred there. Only took 10 seconds.

Here is proof:

[Morrigancharm]

Awesome!!!!

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

Wow, I like the food coloring idea And GrayRodent, he didn't mind?

[GrayRodent]

No he stayed pretty still. You can tell because of how clear it is considering the way scanners work. It didn't phase him. He is very tame and likes to be handled and even cuddle. He is somewhat exceptional for a chinchilla.

[Snickerdoodlesmom]

My chinchilla would try to eat the machine.

[GrayRodent]

Better use a cheap scanner.