As a human baby is quite tough to befriend at the first meeting, chinchillas are somewhat of the same nature. Although it’s a quite friendly pet to hang out with, the petting curve is not quite straight. Being a prey animal, chinchillas are always afraid and at continuous risk of getting attacked by predators.
So you can obviously see that it comes with a fragile temperament and a very flimsy nervous system when you first bring one home. So how to tame a chinchilla when it is not showing any will to give you a High-Five? Well, in this piece, we are going to explore that in detail!
Prepare For Your Pet!
Every single living being demands a warm welcome when it comes to a new place. So does your chinchilla! So make sure you prepare well for it! Here’s what you can do.
Make Its Home
Get a chinchilla cage ready for it before it arrives at your home. Make sure you build or buy the best cage for it. This little animal loves to play in a larger area. It tends to jump around and play, so it obviously needs quite a lot of space.
Make sure you make it a large home to roam around in. Keep the height of the cage enough for it to jump and bounce! Don’t forget to place a nestbox inside for the animal to rest in and have some ‘me time’!
Make the First Day Easy
Don’t rush into playing with it as soon as you bring the animal in. Make it a bit slow. Place it inside the cage and give it a few treats. But don’t overdo it. Simply make sure that you are his neighbor from now on.
Don’t try to grab it quite often. Let it make itself home. You may need to feed it with food and water on a regular basis but don’t make a continuous appearance before it.
Talk to it in a light and low voice to make it easy for it to recognize you. Otherwise, it will get scared of your loud tone and attitude.
Keep its cage in a quiet and calm area. Don’t make any noise around it. Let it feel that it has come home, and no harm is around. As soon as it feels safe, it will try to adjust to its surroundings.
Touching Your Pet – Prepare For It
This is quite serious. Most people don’t know how to hold a chinchilla and scare the heck away of the pet just by touching it in the wrong manner. On the very first days of the pet’s visit to your home, it won’t be as open to your touching as a regular pet. So don’t just rush into it to grab it. Make it slow.
The first thing you can do is simply roam around its cage on a regular basis. Try to talk to it in a sweet tone and lowered voice. Make your appearance a common scenario for it.
Once you feel like that, the pet is ready to be more comfortable around you. Simply try to keep your hands around it. Don’t just grab it in seconds! Try to make it familiar with your hand around it.
You can easily do it by regularly changing the water and delivering the food. This way, you can open the cage door and simply roam your hands around inside so that it relates your hand’s entry as a safe and good thing.
Gradually, when you can find that the little guy is getting more comfortable with your hands around it in the cage; you can simply leave your hands before it. Don’t just approach it. Simply leave it there so that it may smell your hands or explore it sometime.
Touching Your Pet – Go For It
When you can get the signal that it is feeling comfortable with your hands, you can try by simply touching its fur. It will show its affirmation or negation right away. Depending on how it reacts, you will devise your next move.
As it gets more and more comfortable with you, you can now extend your palm for it to ride on it. Keep patience, it may not immediately jump on your hand, but eventually, it will. So keep waiting until it makes its move.
Once it does climb your hand, simply let it explore your hand. Don’t grab it. Let it enjoy your company. You can give it a treat if you want, but it’s better to avoid any treat while it’s on your hand as it may associate climbing on your hand with a treat. This will later create a dilemma in it, so just leave the treat out of it.
Pick It Up
Now that your chinchilla is comfortable and pretty friendly with you, it’s time to pick it up. But don’t just rush into excitement. Try to bend or sit on your knees and extend both of your hands towards it. Support one hand with the other to pick it up on your palm.
Take the pet close to your body to give it proper warmth and care. It will feel much safer in this position.
Don’t Overdo It
Enjoying keeping it in your hand? Well, don’t keep it for too long! Chinchillas are quite a restless animal, and they don’t like to be grabbed for a long time, no matter how comfortable it is. Leave it as soon as you can see, it is starting to squirm and shows any sign of getting anxious.
Try to repeat the process of holding it two to three times a day to make it more comfortable for you. You should increase the number of picking it up rather than the duration of holding it.
Final Words
If you have no idea how to tame a chinchilla, it will be difficult to be friendly with it. Although chinchillas are fun-loving pets, it may end up in a toxic relationship if you don’t follow the proper procedure of taming them. Try to follow the steps that we have discussed here to make sure you befriend your little guy sooner than you want!
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