2 replies to this topic

[Yeti316]

So I just got an older chinchilla and am going to be rearranging my small animal room to fit everyone.

I already have 2 Russian dwarf hamsters (housed separately) and 2 gerbils who live together. Right now I have one playpen that everyone uses (individually, of course) and i just clean out any poo between play sessions. No one seems bothered by the smells of other animals in there.

Now that I’ve got the chinchilla I’m trying to decide between rodent proofing the whole room and having it as one big playpen, of course only one animal (or both gerbils) will be allowed to free roam at a time, and I will vacuum up any poop after a play session.

Or should I divide the room in half and have one side for the smaller guys, and one side for the chinchilla. I know chinchillas are good jumpers but I always supervise during play time so if he tries to jump the wall I’ll just send him back to his side.

One of my concerns if I went with the big shared playpen idea is whether the chinchilla will be annoyed if he can see other rodents running around on the floor, or if the gerbils will be frightened by a chinchilla staring at them. My hamsters don’t seem to recognize that they are prey animals and don’t spook easy so I’m not too worried about them. If I went with the big play space, I would block off the base on the chinchilla cage so no one can try to climb the base or anything, so there’s no risk of the animals coming into actual physical contact with each other, but if the chinchilla was on the bottom of the cage and the other animals approach, they’ll be able to stare at each other with only 18” of vertical height between them, and I wonder if that would be too stressful for everyone.

Just appreciate some thoughts on this. Thank you.

[IsAnyoneThere]

So I just got an older chinchilla and am going to be rearranging my small animal room to fit everyone.

I already have 2 Russian dwarf hamsters (housed separately) and 2 gerbils who live together. Right now I have one playpen that everyone uses (individually, of course) and i just clean out any poo between play sessions. No one seems bothered by the smells of other animals in there.

Now that I’ve got the chinchilla I’m trying to decide between rodent proofing the whole room and having it as one big playpen, of course only one animal (or both gerbils) will be allowed to free roam at a time, and I will vacuum up any poop after a play session.

Or should I divide the room in half and have one side for the smaller guys, and one side for the chinchilla. I know chinchillas are good jumpers but I always supervise during play time so if he tries to jump the wall I’ll just send him back to his side.

One of my concerns if I went with the big shared playpen idea is whether the chinchilla will be annoyed if he can see other rodents running around on the floor, or if the gerbils will be frightened by a chinchilla staring at them. My hamsters don’t seem to recognize that they are prey animals and don’t spook easy so I’m not too worried about them. If I went with the big play space, I would block off the base on the chinchilla cage so no one can try to climb the base or anything, so there’s no risk of the animals coming into actual physical contact with each other, but if the chinchilla was on the bottom of the cage and the other animals approach, they’ll be able to stare at each other with only 18” of vertical height between them, and I wonder if that would be too stressful for everyone.

Just appreciate some thoughts on this. Thank you.

 

As long as you are cleaning up between roaming sessions (which you are going to do), I don't see any issue. As far as I know, chinchillas aren't well known for their predatory instincts and particularly aren't fond of eating hamsters or gerbils, they're not one of the common predators in the eyes of a hamster or a gerbil    

 

So no, I don't think your hamsters or gerbils would be bothered by a chinchilla any more than they'd be bothered by any lingering scent of each other - it's just something else in their territory (hence why you try to remove the smell in between as best you can) but what they're smelling doesn't smell of danger (predator) or threat (another of the same species).

 

In terms of whether the chinchilla would be bothered by seeing rodents on the floor.... well, I don't know your chinchilla, but I don't see why this would be an issue? Again, it's not a threat to them or something they're interested in eating.

Edited by IsAnyoneThere, 26 June 2021 - 07:06 PM.

[Yeti316]

I had posted on another forum as well (just wanted to get some different opinions) and someone said in the wild chinchillas are known to kill mice and are territorial.

There was also some concern about spread of disease. I tried to learn what kind of diseases/bacteria these animals could carry asymptomatically to figure out whether that concern is valid or not, but it was all a bit over my head.