Print

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

[kiargh]

Hello,

My female chinchilla (a year old as of a week ago) , has recently started moving her wooden hut and bedding around.  She throws all of the bedding away from her hut and has become more defensive when we try to go into her cage to clean it or feed her. Not in an aggressive way, just starts doing laps around the cage.  Has anyone else experienced this with their chins?

[GrayRodent]

This is territorial behavior, most likely, from your pet maturing. If she is a single chinchilla you can remove the hutch if it becomes problematic.

[kageri]

Fairly normal.  How long have you had her?  Sometimes just as they settle in they get a bit defensive about their cage.  Otherwise it could be age.  She might have just reached maturity.  It will likely pass.  Try not to be threatening such as when getting her out.  You can use a dust bath container to lure her in and remove from the cage for awhile.  Eventually they catch on to the trick but she might calm down by then.  Especially if you sit with her somewhere she can run that is not her cage.  Try to keep a treat between you and her.  Avoid sugary stuff but it could just be a twig which safe wood can be given as much as you want.  That way when she gets to complaining all she finds is something tasty to chew on.  It works when one of mine gets in a crabby mood.  I bribe him for a few days and he goes back to his normal self.  I'm not sure what causes some of his mood changes.  They all had adjustment issues when we moved in July.

[kiargh]

Ive had her for 7 months now and we have recently (3 months ago) have added a male to the family.  Hes about 5/6 months now. We keep them apart but have their cages beside eachother for communication purposes.  Anyway, we have been very active and communicative with both of them but whenever I go to feed him she gets mad.  And as of recently she has been rearranging her hut.

[kiargh]

Also they make weird chirps to eachother at night that I've never heard from them before.

[GrayRodent]

Yes chinchillas can be quite vocal. Mine chatters and squeaks and makes noises when I imitate him. Typically most of their sounds are out of our range of hearing. It is typical behavior for chinchillas to act territorial when someone enters a room. Mine is bonded with me so when others come in he will run around and kack. Thankfully he is a very tame chinchilla and he doesn't go beyond making noises and still craves attention from those people after a few seconds of being held.

If the behavior escalates I recommend pulling her out of the cage for a few seconds, and then putting her back and do this several times a day along with your normal interaction. I've found this breaks the cycle and usually reverses the behavior.

I've also found the chinchilla hut can sometimes cause a chinchilla to become defensive if you go into the cage. It won't hurt to remove it as long as you don't have multiple chinchillas in a cage, otherwise a hut or shelter is necessary to minimize risks from fighting. Also consider that female chinchillas do have an estrus cycle so their behavior will be inconsistent.

[kageri]

Even without a territorial reason chins like to rearrange their cage.  I have to put bricks or chiller tiles in the corners of our fleece lined cages or they'll pull one corner in to the house and sometimes just shove another section bare.  Which is fine if they didn't often pick that spot to then pee on until the next cage change.  Iroishi is playing liner diver this week and keeps forcing himself under the top layer.