Chinchillas as pets

golok

golok

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I just caught my first glimpse of chinchillas this afternoon when I visited a pet shop. Haven't seen these critters before but they do look awfully cute. Like a giant mouse.

My daughter was quite taken up by them. Are these good as pets?
Chinchillas' biggest fans seem to be children.

I was wondering how do they compare to hamsters.
 
Well, hard to say. They are big rats, but they're more active at night. REALLY active at night. But they are cute, and I think that's what saves them. :rolleyes:


Joe
 
kids like em because they're cute n fuzzy. The question is; in a survival situation, how do they taste?:eek: :D
 
Taste sort of like "chicken..."

...and if you eat enough of them you can make a really expensive coat from the hides.
 
I used to work with a guy that owned one. He was a bachelor and let the chinchilla roam free in the spare bedroom of his apartment.

It seemed like a pretty good pet as I could touch it without getting bit. Quite easy to care for and they eat some sort of pellet food.

My co-worker's chinchilla lived to be 13 years old. He neglected to remove the valuable pelt when it died ;)
 
Chincillas as pets?

You have to use a very small frisbie. Trust me on this.:)
 
We had two a long time ago, they are fairly clean and quite cute but they tend to bite all wires weather live or not and their teeth are sharp (no one was ever bitten though), they are not very tame, they actually ignore humans most of the time. If I remember correctly, they are related to squirrels.

TLM
 
my girlfriend has one as a pet, Hear she is with some good advice on chinchillas.

hey, i think before purchasing a chinchilla it is very important to do the research on them. When i was looking into getting one, i was told that a good age to buy one for a child would be no younger than 13 because of the care and attention u need to provide for it. I did research one chinchillas and found mine on line through a breeder. He is one yrs old now. Yes it is a cute rodent but they do require a certain amount of attention. They are nocturnal so they sleep mostly in the day and do play a lot at night, and are very hyper. You also need to watch their diet since they can get overweight and u need to change their cage once a week. Also u can let them play outside of the cage but u need to watch them carefully because they are chewers and will chew through anything, as my brother's wall found out the hard way. I would recommend them as pets but u have to be serious about owning one and have the time to take care of one, they require more maintenance and attention than say a hamster or a mouse. Just one last thing the initial costs of them u are looking at about roughly three hundred dollars canadian which includes the cage, food, hay, toys, excercise wheel and him. It costs about 20 dollars a month to feed him and i would suggest getting an excercise ball so that u can let him play outside the cage without supervision.

i hope that helps :)
 
knew some folks with 2 of em. had a cage similar to a large birdcage, hanging off to the side in thier living room. 3 levels in it.

they had hampster balls for them to run around in, and the animals were very easy to handle. They got em young, so the pets grew up around ppl, getting handled every day. No idea what's happened in the last 5yrs, haven't talked to them lately.
 
Have you considered a dog?

I'd think that a dog could be a lot more useful in the wilderness. :)

-- Rob
 
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