Environment

For more information about cages, please visit our cages page.

Chinchillas come from high in the Andes mountains of South America where temperatures are cold year round. Between this and their very dense fur, they can overheat easily. The room where they are housed should ideally be kept at 65�F (18�C), and never over 75�F (23�C), even at that, some chins will show signs of overheating.

What are signs of overheating you ask? When hot some chins will lay on their side, act lethargic or �lazy�, their ears can be red and/or feel hot to the touch. Being too warm can cause seizures and have other long-term effects.

First off, don't panic! Your chins need you, you can panic later 😉

We've put together some helpful ideas for ways to help cool them off! Some require prep so we suggest you read through this page now, before you need it, so you are ready when your air conditioner dies, some even work if you lose power for an extended amount of time.

Your Car: for power outages and shorter times, put your chins in a travel crate (everyone should have 1 for emergencies), start your car and run the air conditioner there! From everything I could find, you would use less than a gallon of gas/hour running your car at an idle.

Tiles: keep some tiles (ceramic, granite, porcelain... they all work) in the freezer. When needed, wrap them in fleece (I sewed some fleece pillowcases the right size for mine) and put in their cage. Replace as they warm up. The fleece is necessary as frozen tiles can condensate as they warm up and frozen tiles are COLD, too cold for fragile little chin feet! Any size works, even as small as 4x4. Here are ones of an almost perfect size:

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Water Bottles & Fan: fill water bottles about 3/4�s full (water expands when frozen) and keep in the freezer. When needed tie them to a fan so the air flows across them... replace as needed.

Look at the images at the bottom of the page for more ideas!

Check out our resources page for "how to make an air conditioner"!