Chinchillas have become a lot popular as a pet nowadays, especially in the US region. These adorable little creatures are generally found in rocky, mountainous areas in South America. They are quite playful and active animals.
You can pet them easily if they get proper attention and care. But you won’t be able to treat them like the way you treat your dogs and cats. For example, if we ask you, can your potty train a chinchilla? Well, the most common answer we get from our readers is ‘no’.
Although, it’s not that difficult to take care of them. When it comes to training them as a good pet, all you need is a little bit of patience and knowledge about their nature. In our today’s article, we will be focusing on how to potty train a chinchilla. So, let’s get started.
How to Get Started?
It would be great if you could get started when your chinchillas are young. Like any other pet animal out their chinchillas are also easy to train at their young age.
When they are about 8-9 months old, you can go adopt them. But if you can get to adopt one at an early age, for instance, 5-6 months of age, then you can also get started with the potty-training.
How to Get them Comfortable at Their Home?
Potty training is a stressful process for chinchillas, so first and foremost, you got to get them comfortable in their new environment.
You can give them a similar bed that you are going to use in their box. It won’t be a good idea to use cat litter for your chinchilla bedding. However, there are multiple safe bedding options for them. For example, newspaper, clean straw, or pin shaving.
What to Get for Potty Training Supplies?
After bringing your chinchilla home, you can go to your local supply shop. And grab a litter scoop and a litter pan. You may go for a cat litter pan but avoid getting cat litter.
Why You Need Track His Habits?
When it comes to training your chinchilla to get used to certain activities, you just need to track their usual habits. First of all, you need to observe where do exactly your chinchillas tend to urinate. After that, you may utilize this knowledge to slowly convince him to pee in the box instead of peeing in on the floor. When it comes to young babies, it gets a little bit tricky as they tend to pee anywhere they feel like.
But as soon as they reach the age of 6 months, they start to develop the habit of peeing in a specific place. At that time, you can start training them to potty in a specific place inside their cage or even get them used to go to the toilet.
Don’t clean his cage for a week and notice which place he usually uses to pee. In the case of young chinchillas, it’s near impossible to potty train. When you notice that he started using a specific place for peeing, you can begin his potty training.
How Changing the Bedding Can be Helpful?
As you know where he goes to pee, you can slowly begin to decrease his bedding area until he gets used to peeing in a certain place. However, you must ensure that you have given him a comfortable space for peeing. But avoid giving him a larger area than his requirement for bedding.
The main mission here is to make him aware of where he’s supposed to sleep and where to pee. Take at least one or two weeks in conducting the bedding reducing process.
How Replacing the Bedding Could be a Good Idea?
Here’s an amazing idea. You can try replacing his bed with a pan. As he knows now where the bedding and toilet area are, you can replace the bedding with a litter pan. That’s how he will know that the pan is the appropriate place for peeing.
We would suggest you changing the litter after 2-3 days so that he won’t get confused about the process. As soon as he gets the process, you can start cleaning the pot on a daily basis.
Why You Shouldn’t Move the Pan?
It could take several months for him to learn to use the pan. So, during this process, if you move the pan or change the box, it might make him totally puzzled. We would suggest you keep the pan in a specific place for several months with the same decor. During this time, he will get used to the setting.
However, if you decide to change the position of the pot, don’t move it far away suddenly. Move it bit by it each day; that’s how he will get to understand that the pan is being moved. And the same method goes with the bedding.
How Using a Waste Transfer Method Can be Helpful?
This technique is going to be a bit different. This method begins with placing the litter box in a certain place from the beginning. Then slowly train your chinchilla to sleep inside of that box instead of the floor.
Why do You Need to Clean the Waste?
You need to visit your chinchilla at least once in an hour and check which place he used for bedding and bathroom. If you see that he peed on the bedding, then clean it as soon as possible.
It’s essential to make sure that your chinchillas’ bed is not wet. Because it has a strong smell and your chinchillas will get puzzled about where the heck you have moved their bed.
How Can You Change the Litter Box?
No matter how much love you have for your chinchilla, I can tell you won’t appreciate the smell of its waste. So, you have done regular cleaning and changing of his equipment.
Final Words
Taking care of a chinchilla is not as easy as taking care of your other pets, such as dogs and cats. They require a bit extra patience and effort. However, with the proper time and training, they can be tamed.
Potty training your chinchilla is a bit tricky but not so difficult. We hope after reading our today’s article; now it’s clear to you how to potty train a chinchilla.
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