Today keeping of a chinchilla in the house – any more not such rarity, as more than a decade ago. This amusing fluffy small animal similar at the same time to a squirrel and a rabbit, got to the Russian apartments from South America where he lives in the nature, and won hot sympathies of fans of animals. Chinchillas not bad take root in house conditions. But to provide to the exotic pet comfortable existence, it is necessary to take care of supporting him in due form.
Instruction
1. Pick up a suitable cage or chinchilla enclosure. As this animal belongs to rodents, the dwelling for it it is necessary to get from metal. The lodge has to be warm and dry, with good lighting and ventilation. Select the sizes depending on quantity of small animals. The cage of 50 by 70 cm and up to 50 cm high will be suitable for one, several pets need the open-air cage more. If you are going to be engaged in cultivation, do not buy too high cage, the appeared cubs surely will begin to climb up upward and can fall and to itself to damage something.
2. Equip a cage with a sliding iron pallet, so will clean it more conveniently. On a pallet fill pure sawdust. It is necessary to change them approximately once a week as a chinchilla – the small animal clean, began to smell from her minimum. In order that your pet could have a rest with comfort, establish several wooden shelves in a cage. Short flights of stairs which the chinchilla will climb, and tunnels where she will begin to hide will not prevent. An obligatory element – a small lodge about 30 by 15 cm in size and 15 cm high. The feeding trough and a drinking bowl fasten on a front wall of a cage. And feeding troughs it is better to put two (one for hay which surely has to be present at a diet of a chinchilla).
3. To chinchillas it is vital to clean the hair in fine river sand. Buy a special transparent kupalka of 30х20х20 cm in size, fill it with clean sand and put 2-3 times a week in a cage where there lives a chinchilla, for 20-30 minutes. To watch the small animals taking a sand bath very interestingly. After such cleaning their wool becomes fluffy, the mood considerably improves. But it is not necessary to leave the container with sand in a cage for a long time - the chinchilla can do dirt there.
4. It is necessary to feed a chinchilla approximately the same as an ordinary rabbit. Buy ready-made feeds in pet-shop or in the market. Treat the pet with fruit and carrot, seeds of plants, dandelion leaves, slightly dried clover in the summer. Chinchillas love dry grain crusts. In the winter surely yield them dried fruits, fruits of a dogrose and barberry. Do not forget about hay – it surely has to be present at a diet. For grinding of teeth put in a cage a stone, a big piece of chalk, wooden Chushka Spit.