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[Indigoblue9572]

Ok, so we're heading into week 3 of owning our new babies and I've noticed something puzzling about their cage.  It was recommended to me by their previous owner to use CareFresh bedding so I bought some of that.  Since we have 2 chinchillas, I change the bottom tray that has about 2" of bedding in it every 3 or 4 days.

I changed it out on Saturday since we were re-doing their cage (installing wood shelving, rearranging some things, hanging their food hopper on the outside of the cage and putting in a corner litter box).  Saturday evening they were out playing while we were working on their cage.  I bleached out the bottom tray, dried it and refilled it with carefresh.  Then added the a few pieces of pee-soaked carefresh and some new bedding to their litter box and returned the chins after their 2 hr playtime.

Last night after we returned them to their cage, I smelled a strong pee smell.  Not sure if it was coming from the litter box or the bottom of the cage, but thought that was odd since usually we don't smell anything for a few days.

Any suggestions?  Should I change their bedding to aspen or pine shavings?  What IS the best bedding for odor control? 

[GrayRodent]

Personally I prefer pine bedding over carefresh if the chinchillas are exposed to the bedding. I know of several incidents where chinchillas have eaten carefresh bedding and died of bowel impactions, and also cases where exposure to the bedding causes pathological dry skin conditions. I am amazed you can smell it after putting that much bedding in twice a week. I use a puppy training pad as a tray liner (out of reach of a single adult chinchilla) and only need to change it every 7 days. It's just absorptive enough to keep the pee on it and is not near as good as regular bedding. I usually don't notice any smell until day 7.

I strongly suspect there isn't enough air circulation in your room. You may want to try putting a fan at the doorway (as long as it's not blowing into the cage) or running your central heating/cooling on fan mode during the day if it's not in use.

Safe beddings are kiln dried pine or aspen and not cedar chips. Anything scented can cause respiratory irritation and possibly death so it's best to avoid anything with scent additives. I know several people on the board use carefresh without having problems despite its risks. Odor-wise I imagine carefesh will be the best because it's more absorptive than the others although I still recommend pine.

[Indigoblue9572]

Thanks.  They are exposed to the bedding, since it lines the bottom of the cage.  It has a pull out drawer, with the option of a slide in wire grate, which would keep things cleaner, obviously, but I don't want their feet exposed to wire really at all.  They have the solid floor with the bedding and wood shelves, plus a hammock and a pvc pipe to crawl through.  Hopps likes to sleep in the hammock, Barely in the PVC, but sometimes they'll also sleep in their wood hidey hut on the floor of the cage. 

My husband said he couldn't smell anything, it was just me.  I don't know if I'm overly sensitive to their pee smells or what, but I'm a very clean housekeeper and figure if I can smell it, something needs to be done about it.

The room is ventilated fine and their cage is in the dining room in between our kitchen and living room.  I keep the thermostat set at 68 so as not to overheat them.  Their cage is wire, so no issues there with ventilation.

I think I'll pick up some kiln dried pine bedding this coming weekend and mix it in with the carefresh and see if that makes a difference. 

Thanks again for your input.  Always appreciated

[GrayRodent]

A wire floor (with 1/2" x 1/2" bar spacing) won't be a problem as long as they have shelves and solid places to rest on like what you have when the animals prefer those places to stay. In my cage (you can see it here http://www.chinchillaclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,4091.msg31008/topicseen.html#new) I fabricated a solid floor with a wire area and it works quite well.

My first chinchilla (who lived in a different cage with a laminated wire floor) did like to dwell in his hut most of the time so I did put bedding under it although he usually managed to knock it all back into the tray since he preferred the wire. His feet did appear slightly irritated and calloused but it never got bad. Eventually I removed the hut from the cage because he became territorial about it so he slept on a shelf instead. When I did this the cage was a lot less messy and the chinchilla became a lot friendlier.

[Indigoblue9572]

Got ya.  I think the wire grate the cage came with is larger spaced than 1/2"x1/2".  My husband is designing a new cage he'll build himself over the next 6 months or so, that way when the babies are full grown, they'll have a brand new cage! 

Hopefully this one will be a learning experience for us and we'll be able to eliminate any issues with the new one he's going to build.

Any tips?

[Indigoblue9572]

Here's the cage after we put wood shelves and other things in it.  The spacing in the wires on the sides are wider than the front and back, so we wrap the entire thing in smaller wire we bought at the hardware store for when we can't watch them so they can't escape.  I also don't want my cat sticking his paws in the cage either.

My husband will use smaller spaced wire when he constructs the new cage.  This one is just being used temporarily till the babies are full grown and we can have the new one built. 

[GrayRodent]

I think it's not safe to have larger than 1/2" x 1/2" bar spacing for a wire floor. If they can get a leg through it they can break it. As far as tips the most important thing I learned was that you have to be super careful with all interior joints because chinchilla feet can get into tiny gaps and if they're flexible gaps injury can easily result. When I worked with the wire construction cloth I used an inexpensive angle grinder (I think I was using 5" wheels) and that makes it very easy not only to cut it but also to grind the edges down to smooth the sharp points where the wire is cut. The problem I had was with getting it tightly stretched across the large floor area because the frame of the cage I was modifying did not facilitate that. Because of the way the cage was constructed It was easy to install a wood floor using a sub-frame.

Cages made of wire (like 1/2" x 1") rolls can be constructed using crimp-on fasteners. There is hardware for making these wire cages available and often can be found a stores that sell feed and tack. My mom made a travel cage for her parrot this way and it was fairly easy to do. The floor joints came out well too. I think we did buy a crimping tool for the fasteners but pliers will work if you're very patient. We used plastic edge guards for the doors but I think metal ones are available (that won't get chewed on) and closers for the door that look kind of like springs that go on each side.

Just as a safety tip do not make shelves or ramps out of wire panels or you risk killing your chinchilla. They can get their feet through the wire and break their bones if they slip or jump off the edge a certain way.  I've seen numerous reports of this happening because many cages marketed for chinchillas have these. (Maybe I've already said this but I don't remember)

Another thing to think of when building a cage is the tray. My parrot cage has a nice deep tray that is far enough beneath the floor that I don't have to worry about my pet getting into his mess. The problem is that urine can splash out of the cage and sometimes it can come through the grate at an angle and get onto the floor. I used plastic sheeting (where the chinchilla cannot get it) to prevent this from happening. You can use a plastic cutting board (that can roll up) or place mat or something and cut it to size. You'll need to be able to wash it off or it will build up and stink.

Also because we are renting I added an extra layer of protection to the carpet by adding a rubber mat below the cage. This mat was sold by the foot at Lowe's and came on a roll was very cheap and very thin, probably made for a tile floor. I turned it upside down so the smooth side faces the cage and it makes it very easy to sweep up hay and cage debris.

You can buy guards that keep the poo from rolling off shelving and getting onto the floor. If you're good with sheet metal I recommend building some if you don't like sweeping around the cage several times a day.

That's about all I can think of

[Indigoblue9572]

thanks so much!  I copied your message and emailed it to my husband.  he's stopping by Lowe's tonight after work to price supplies and get an idea of what he'll need.

Your post was very helpful and I'm sure he'll refer to it when constructing the new cage.

Oh, and we're aware of the ramp situations.  Our chin babies just jump from shelf to shelf.  We removed the plastic shelves and ramps that came with our chinchilla cage and he replaced the plastic shelves with wood, NO ramps.

[chinclub]

I can't stand the smell of carefresh!  I tried to use it once because it doesn't track though the house like pine does.  I agree with you that I could smell the cage much sooner than with pine.   Interestingly, it isn't the urine we are smelling.  When the bedding gets wet it sours and smells.  (Pine will do this too just not as noticeable, in my opinion).

When we build cages we use untreated pine wood for shelves.  We angle them slightly downward toward the middle of the cage. Not so much that the chinchillas will notice when they sit on them, but enough so that when the chinchillas poop on the shelves it will roll down into the bottom of the cage.  It will cut down greatly on the amount that ends up on your floor.

[Indigoblue9572]

Thanks Jamie!!

My husband has the frame completed already.  I thought he was just going to get a materials list and price things but he wanted to start building right away.

He got kiln dried pine boards and the new cage will be approx. 5x4x2 1/2. 

Quick question - what's best to use as the flooring?  He said he found some sheet metal but it was only 2' - and I didn't want to use wood flooring since it would soak up the chins pee.

[GrayRodent]

I still recommend using the system that I constructed outlined in the link I provided. The floor was easy to construct. Part of the floor is solid panels and one panel is a frame with wire mesh stapled to the bottom. The wood frame keeps the mesh tight and gap free. My chinchilla does not pee anywhere but through the mesh. If you fit the frames right you'll be able to lift them easily out to clean under them and place them back without having any hazardous gaps. I do that about once a month. I included foam tape under the boards in the design shown to reduce noise (clacking of boards against each other) but it proved to be a lot of trouble when I went in to deep-clean the cage so I redid that. I doubt you'll need to do that unless you sleep in the same room as the cage.

If you use wire for the floor you'll want 1/2" x 1/2" wire construction cloth. That is the minimum safe wire spacing. Smaller holes will also work. Also when using a wood frame make sure the chinchillas don't chew it down to expose any nails, staples, or fasteners that can hurt them.

[Indigoblue9572]

A friend that raised chinchillas for a long time suggested tile flooring since we have a separate litter box.  What are your thoughts on that?

No more bedding to buy/spill everywhere, poos will sweep nicely off the tile, it stays cool for them...

[GrayRodent]

As long as they are using the litter box I don't see a problem with that. My chinchilla spends a lot of time on a large marble slab that was salvaged from an old dresser. I suppose that would be a very similar surface. It's nice since you can clean that unlike wood which just has to be replaced every so often.