Chinchilla Community Forums

Chinchillas => Q & A => Topic started by: Jasonred79 on January 05, 2014, 07:32:48 AM

Title: Chin poops in food bowl
Post by: Jasonred79 on January 05, 2014, 07:32:48 AM
Even when I use a tiny food bowl, I'll find lots of poop in it.

Anyhow, my question is, how often do I need to clean it? He's still growing so I'm not sure how much food to give him, it seems variable. Anyhow, problem is when there's lots of unbeaten pellets mixed in with lots of poop...

So far I just pick out the poop and assume that the remaining pellets are still edible. Is this wrong?
Title: Re: Chin poops in food bowl
Post by: GrayRodent on January 05, 2014, 07:42:17 AM
That's not really a problem since chinchillas sometimes do eat their poop as part of their digestive process. I do recommend cleaning it out and not letting it build up.
It sounds like your chinchilla is sitting on top of the bowl maybe as a place to rest upon. How is your cage set up?
Title: Re: Chin poops in food bowl
Post by: Jasonred79 on January 06, 2014, 07:29:33 AM
I changed to a large bowl since the old one didn't work.

Old bowl, he treated it as a chair, food bowl, circus tool... He sometimes turned it sideways and used it as a wheel. ... Crazy chin I got...
Title: Re: Chin poops in food bowl
Post by: GrayRodent on January 06, 2014, 03:24:31 PM
There's a thing that I started using recently, not for that reason, but because I thought he would like to chew on it. It's a toy that has about 10 wooden logs that are tied together with two paralell wires that run through it and you can bend it into shapes like a tunnel. My chinchilla likes to sit on that now in addition to his shelves. I wish I knew what it's called but I don't. Maybe that or something like it will give your chinchilla a different place to go besides his food bowl. The food bowl I have is small and has a clamp that mounts it to the side of the cage. Before I had that I used a 1" c-clamp to keep him from dumping it over.
Title: Re: Chin poops in food bowl
Post by: Jasonred79 on January 07, 2014, 07:35:32 AM
I have that tunnel thing too. He likes to go on it. Sometimes in it. But he prefers the elevated houses.