Enrichment

Have you ever found your chinchilla chewing and scratching furniture?

To us these may be perceived as “bad habits” but the truth is that these are just natural behavior of chinchillas.

Chinchillas are social animals and in the wild they spend a lot of time grooming each other, searching for food and exploring. However, our pet chinchillas are usually not able to express all these natural behaviours in our household, so what we see are those ‘bad habits”. Chinchillas may overgroom due to stress and chew the fur off the sides of their bodies.  As they are social animals they do like companionship.

As they are prey to many animals (ie in the wild they will be killed and eaten) they are always alert and aware of their surroundings. Letting them express these natural behaviours is important to reduce the stress of our chinchillas and to help their health, especially the bones and muscles, gut function, as well as their mental health.

The living environment of the chinchilla should be enriched to stimulate the expression of the natural behaviours without causing much trouble.

The cage should have several layers so they can bounce around and exercise properly.

Being exposed in open area, without anywhere to hide, can be extremely stressful for a chinchilla. A box serves as a hiding place for a chinchilla to rest and escape from potential danger so they will feel more secure and comfortable. Please place at least one box for each chinchilla in your cage.

Chinchillas in the wild chew sticks, so chewing part of their natural instinct. In our home environment, we can encourage this behaviour simply by providing our  chinchillas with chewable toys, this will also help keep the teeth healthy

Allowing your chinchilla out of their cage to run around on a daily basis will help maintain their health. Building a playground of tunnels for them or just letting them out of the cage for exercise can make a great different to our pet’s happiness. We prefer that you give you chinchilla 2 hours of exercise every day.

Foraging: making them work for food. In the wild chinchillas need to search for thier food.

We can mimic this by:

• Stuffing hay inside the cardboard roll from inside a toilet /kitchen paper roll.
• Poking bits of vegetables or treats through the bars of the cage high up so your chinchilla needs to stretch up.
• Scattering pellets around the floor when your chinchilla is let out to roam.
• Using  an old cardboard box and filling it with  hay so the chinchilla can dig through it. You can add some pellets or a little treat in here for them to find. This is called a forage box.

Providing an enriched environment for your chinchillas is lots of fun for both you and your pets!