Chinchilla — Fact Sheet

Chinchilla lanigera · Chinchilla · Langschwanz-Chinchilla

Full care guide and sources

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Enclosure planning dimensions: 200 x 100 x 200 cm

🪨 Substrate and furnishings

Use a chew-resistant metal enclosure with a solid base and broad solid resting platforms. Mesh sides provide ventilation, but prolonged standing on wire can injure feet. Stagger shelves to limit falls, secure every heavy object, and provide wooden nest boxes, tunnels, untreated branches, kiln-dried chew blocks, pumice, and a solid-surface exercise wheel at least about 38 cm in diameter if space and design allow safe use.

Use 5–10 cm of low-dust paper bedding or kiln-dried aspen over the solid base. Avoid cedar, scented or dusty litter, clumping cat litter, loose fibers, plastic furniture that can be swallowed, and wheels or platforms with mesh running surfaces. Supervised exercise belongs in a cool, fully chinchilla-proof room with cables, toxic plants, gaps, water, and other pets secured.

💡 Lighting

Provide a consistent 10–12-hour day followed by darkness. Chinchillas do not require a basking lamp or routine UVB for standard indoor care. Daylight or a protected room light should be bright enough to establish rhythm without shining directly into sleeping boxes.

🌡️ Temperature

• Daytime air: 15-21 °C

• Cool zone: 12-18 °C

• Night: 12-18 °C

• Install and test air conditioning before hot weather

• Treat 23–25 °C as an action threshold; heatstroke risk rises sharply near and above 26.7 °C

• Fans circulate room-temperature air but do not provide reliable cooling

💧 Humidity and water

Keep relative humidity around 30–50% with strong ventilation. Warm humid air mats the dense coat and raises heat-stress and skin-disease risk. Avoid enclosed glass tanks, wet bedding, room humidifiers near the cage, and leaving a soiled dust bath in place.

Provide fresh water continuously, preferably with two checked sources for a pair. Bottles must flow when tested; bowls must be heavy and positioned where they stay clean. Chinchillas should not be washed or allowed to swim. If fur becomes wet, dry the environment, blot gently, and seek veterinary advice if the skin or coat does not dry normally.

🪳 Feeding

Unlimited fresh grass hay is the foundation of the diet and supports both gut motility and dental wear. Timothy, meadow, or another appropriate grass hay should smell fresh and remain dry and mold-free. Offer a measured plain chinchilla pellet, commonly about 1–2 tablespoons per adult daily depending on product energy, body condition, and veterinary advice.

Introduce any leafy herb or vegetable slowly and in very small amounts; individuals with soft stools or digestive disease may need a simpler hay-and-pellet plan. Treats should be rare and tiny. Avoid muesli mixes, seeds, nuts, bread, cereal, yogurt drops, honey sticks, dried fruit, frequent fresh fruit, high-fat foods, and sudden diet changes.

A healthy adult on suitable hay and a complete chinchilla pellet does not normally need routine calcium, vitamin, or mineral additions. Unplanned supplements can create imbalances. Provide several hay and pellet stations in group housing, refresh hay daily, and never let an anorexic chinchilla “wait until tomorrow”: reduced intake and fecal output can become an emergency.

🩺 Health — warning signs

Dental disease is one of the most important chronic risks. Drooling, a wet chin, selective eating, dropping food, smaller feces, eye discharge, jaw swelling, or weight loss can indicate molar overgrowth or root disease even when the front teeth look normal. Diagnosis requires an experienced veterinarian and often imaging.

Gastrointestinal stasis, dysbiosis, constipation, diarrhea, heatstroke, respiratory irritation, ringworm, fur chewing, fur slip, foot sores, urinary stones, trauma, and reproductive disease also occur. Reduced fecal output, a swollen painful abdomen, refusal to eat, labored breathing, persistent diarrhea, blood, collapse, or inability to move normally needs urgent care.

Do not give antibiotics, gut medicines, dental trimming, or force-feeding without veterinary direction; some common drugs are dangerous to hindgut-fermenting rodents, and assisted feeding can be unsafe with obstruction or severe bloat.