Content
Before purchasing a fluffy and very mobile animal, you need to equip it with a place to live. Like all rodents, chinchillas love to taste everything. An animal running freely around the house is gnawed at furniture, baseboards, walls and electrical wires. This not only outrages the owners, but also poses a danger to the chinchilla itself.
There are industrially made cages for chinchillas, but not all pet stores can buy them. In addition, a purchased cage provides only the minimum needs of the animal, and the owner usually wants his pet to be happy. You can make a custom chinchilla cage yourself.
DIY showcase and house for chinchilla
Cages for chinchillas can be divided into two large groups: for fur farms and for home keeping.
For a home, you can make a cage 80 cm high. But most chinchilla breeders prefer to make a showcase cage. Feature of the showcase: the height significantly exceeds the width and length. The side walls can be covered with a metal wall or completely wooden. Often an old cabinet is converted into a showcase for a chinchilla. For the same reason, sometimes a showcase looks like a nightstand.
How to make a showcase from an old cabinet
The main requirement for a chinchilla cage is floor space. One animal should have 0.4 sq. m, that is, 1 mx 0.4 m. The length and width of the cage in this case are not a dogma - the dimensions can be changed proportionally. For a larger number of animals, the area of the cage is correspondingly increased.
The old wardrobe is convenient in that it requires a minimum of labor when converting it into a house for chinchillas. But it is also dangerous, since usually cabinets are made of chipboard. If the animal tries the chipboard on the tooth, it can be poisoned.
- The doors are removed from the cabinet and from the inside it is converted for animals.
- If there are shelves, they are partially cut out so that the chinchillas can move freely from bottom to top and back.
- If shelves were not provided in the closet, freedom of creativity appears. The chinchilla shelves can be positioned to your liking.Important! The shelves must be made of natural wood. If the smooth side walls are inconvenient to gnaw, then the horizontally located chinchilla will definitely try on the tooth.
- A hole is cut out in the top of the cabinet for air circulation. The hole is tightened with a metal mesh.
- Instead of cabinet doors, wooden frames are made, tightened with metal mesh. You can simplify your work and make frames from "native" doors by cutting holes in them along the entire length. Leave only strips around the perimeter of the door about 10 cm wide.
- Ideal if the cabinet was with lower drawers. Then, in the main part of the showcase, the floor is removed and replaced with a grid. A tray is placed under the net for droppings, feed and debris. In this case, you do not have to open the entire showcase to clean the chinchilla's cage.
- If desired, the side walls of the showcase can also be made mesh.
Showcase from scratch
When making a showcase from scratch, you will need a solid wood backboard and bars for the frame. Everything else can be tightened with a metal mesh. In addition, you will also need:
- screwdriver;
- self-tapping screws;
- jigsaw;
- door hinges;
- drill;
- drill;
- PVC tape.
Since the showcase is made individually, taking into account the size of the room in which the chinchillas will live, and the location of other furniture in the room, drawings are usually not made. On the spot, measure the length, width and height of the future showcase and calculate the required amount of materials. An approximate drawing of the future showcase looks like this:
The vertical supports of the frame also serve as legs if the floor in the showcase is mesh and there is a garbage tray under it.
The photo shows a showcase for several chinchillas with the expectation of raising young animals. In this case, the display case was made from scratch and the dimensions indicated were used.
Sometimes the showcase is placed in the corner of the room. But a corner showcase for chinchillas is more difficult to manufacture and requires at least minimal woodworking skills.
For such a showcase as in the photo, two solid shields are required, knocked down at a right angle. It will not be difficult for a carpenter to make such a corner showcase, and other chinchilla owners can make their work easier by remaking an old corner cabinet for the needs of chinchillas.
If the animals are kept for a short time, repairs will have to be done after them.
A simpler version of a corner display case can be made by using walls to enclose the space.
- A couple of vertical bars of the required height are stuffed onto the walls. They should cover the inhabited part of the display case.
- On top of these bars, two horizontal ones are nailed.
- It is best if the metal mesh is located inside the cage. That is, first, a mesh is attached to the upper bars, then the bars are nailed to the wall.
- A similar operation is performed from below.
- To protect the wall from attempts to grind teeth on it, the sides can also be closed with a metal mesh.Note! The bottom of the cage should not reach the floor of the room if it is made of mesh.
- If you fear that the chinchilla will injure the legs on the net, the bottom is made of a solid wooden or plastic shield. The same goes for "regular" showcases. In this case, a suitably sized excrement tray is placed at the bottom of the showcase or the tree is covered with a waterproof dense material.
- The mesh doors are attached to the vertical side rails. You can make two doors, you can have one wide. Also, for ease of cleaning, you can divide the doors vertically, making them opening autonomously. Then, to clean the display case, it will be enough to open only the lower half.
- Inside the showcases, at various levels, shelves are screwed on, on which chinchillas will run.
- After the main part of the future home is ready, the heads of all bolts and screws are closed with plugs, since chinchillas often try to sharpen their teeth about them. To prevent the animal from gnawing wooden bars, they are pasted over with PVC tape.
If you put a drinker and a feeder in the cage, then the dwelling will already be ready to receive the inhabitants. But for a comfortable life of chinchillas in a showcase, additional equipment will be required.
How to set up a chinchilla cage
With only shelves, the animal will feel uncomfortable. Chinchillas are good jumpers, but they are far from squirrels. Therefore, transitions will need to be made between the shelves. In addition, as nocturnal animals, chinchillas need a shelter where they can sleep during the day. First of all, animals need a house.
Making a house
The appearance of the house depends solely on the imagination and skill of the owner of the chinchilla. The main requirement is that it must fit in size. In a shelter that is too spacious, the animal will feel discomfort, and in too small it will be cramped. The simplest version of the house is in the photo below. This is a wooden box with a sawn-out entrance.
A more complex version of a large house for a large chinchilla also provides for the possibility of attaching a wooden hemp-delicacy to the house.
The rest of the owner's imagination is not limited. You can make houses on several floors, with several entrances, or decorate them with carvings.
Bathing suit
Chinchillas are very fond of swimming in the sand, so a bathing suit also belongs to the essentials for animals, like a feeder with a drinker. Swimwear can be bought at the pet store, but they are also easy to make with your own hands.
Hay nursery
The feeder is used for feeding grain concentrates and various dried fruits to animals. A separate place should be provided for hay. You can make a miniature nursery in a classic form.
They can be made from wire or wooden sticks.
Although the animals are often equal in size, the rabbit is not adapted to wade into very narrow crevices. What is safe for rabbits can pose a threat to the chinchilla's life. In the photo below, the chinchilla has just climbed into a hay ball for rabbits and cannot get out of it on its own.
A feeder, a drinking bowl, a nursery, a house, a pallet and a bathing bath - the showcase now has everything a chinchilla needs, except for a town for physical activity.
Town
Chinchillas are animals prone to obesity, and they need active movement just like food and water. You can get chinchillas to move by building routes that are comfortable for them to climb in the "town".
The town includes:
- running wheel for chinchillas;
- shelves fixed at different levels;
- transitions between shelves.
The variety of transitions is limited only by the imagination and skill of the owner of the chinchilla.
It can be:
- suspension bridges;
- tunnels;
- stairs;
- swing.
The only requirement for all these products is natural wood without paint and varnish. You can make transitions from unsharpened edible tree branches. And change it periodically.
A hammock for a chinchilla suspended in a showcase plays the role of a transition, toys and resting places. It is made of dense, non-stretch fabric. Denim works well. They are fixed so that the chinchilla can jump into the hammock, but cannot swing it strongly.
In addition to shelves and walkways, a running wheel and a treadmill must be present in the town. The wheels are sold at pet stores and are designed for all active small animals. You need to buy a wooden or plastic wheel, as a metal wheel can be dangerous for a chinchilla. But you can do it yourself.
DIY chinchilla wheel
To make a wheel you will need:
- 2 sheets of plywood with a side of at least 40 cm and a thickness of at least 1 cm;
- up to 10 figured meter strips;
- tension automobile bearing;
- drill;
- drill 12 mm;
- self-tapping screws;
- 2 bolts with a diameter of 12 mm: long and short;
- screwdriver;
- washers for bolts;
- bolt nuts;
- jigsaw.
Manufacturing technology:
- Find the middle in the pieces of plywood and drill holes. With an electric jigsaw, cut 2 circles of 30 cm in diameter.
- One is left, another circle with a diameter of 25–27 cm is cut out of the other. From this circle, only a large circle will be needed.
- The slats are cut into pieces about 15 cm long. The size of the slats depends on the chinchilla. The animal must fit freely into the wheel.
- The cut slats are tightly attached to the ends of the circle and the cut out circle.
- A washer is put on a long bolt, the bolt is inserted from the inside into the wheel, another washer is put on and the structure is screwed with a nut.
- A bolt hole is drilled in the wall of the display case.
- The center of the bearing is aligned with the hole in the wall and the bearing is screwed on with self-tapping screws.
- A wheel with a bolt is inserted into the bearing and tightened with a nut from the outside of the display case.
The video shows in sufficient detail how to make a running wheel for chinchillas.
Treadmill
For chinchillas, this is an additional device, and it is easier to buy it in the store. There it can be sold as a treadmill for decorative hedgehogs. It looks like this.
Now the showcase contains everything you need for a happy life of chinchillas. It remains only to figure out what a walking ball is.
Chinchilla ball
This is a device that a chinchilla should not have. The plastic ball transmits infrared rays very well and heats up from the inside. Chinchillas do not tolerate heat well. Half an hour in such a ball is enough for the animal to die.
In such a ball, some careless owners of small animals let them “walk” in the fresh air and eat green grass falling into the cracks of the ball. Juicy food for chinchilla is contraindicated. And the stress of a walk is much more harmful than being in a spacious showcase.
Farm cage
A chinchilla cage on a fur farm is almost indistinguishable from a rabbit cage. The only differences are an additional shelf above the cage floor and a passage for the male, which mates with 4–8 females on the farm at once. You can also make a cage for a fur chinchilla with your own hands.
This will require:
- galvanized mesh;
- scissors for metal cutting;
- clamps;
- pliers.
Manufacturing process:
- The mesh is marked out and cut into pieces.
- An additional shelf is tightly attached to one of the side parts.
- After that, all sides are fastened with clamps.
- In the front part of the cage, a door is cut out and hung on the fasteners.
- In the side walls, a passage is made for the male chinchilla and covered with a small tunnel. The tunnel is needed so that the male can rest.
- They place a feeder, a drinker, a nursery and a house in the cage and start chinchillas.
If necessary, the houses are independently made according to the same scheme as for rabbits.
Conclusion
Chinchilla will bring a lot of joy and live a long time if it has the opportunity not only to eat right, but also to move a lot. A lot of space is needed for active movement, and industrial store cages are too small for this. Therefore, most chinchilla owners prefer to make showcases for their animals with their own hands.
