Catching your chinchilla

The easiest and least stressful way to catch your chinchilla is to cheat and use the dust bath-put down the container, when your chinchilla goes in pick up the container 🙂

Picking up your chinchilla

Always approach from the chinchilla’s level, never from above.  The best way to pick up your chinchilla is to hold the base of the tail with one hand and scoop up under the chin with your other hand.  Do not squeeze the chinchilla, they have delicate bones, and squeezing can break the ribs.

Holding your chinchilla

Once you are have picked up your chinchilla, you can hold it close to you, on your lap or against your chest.  Be sure to keep hold on the base of the tail so that your chin does not try to jump and fall.

**Important: you can hold a chinchilla by the base of the tail (right where it connects to the body) however under no circumstances should you ever hold or grab a chinchilla by the middle or end of the tail**

5 Responses

  1. I only ever grabbed the middle of my chin’s tail once; the door to his ball had popped off when he was in the laundry room of my house, and he was trying to escape between the two huge machines and when I tried to catch him I caught his tail for less than 5 seconds. No damage was done and luckily I managed to catch him before he got away. He was being supervised at the time but he made a dash for it as soon as the door came loose. Now I make sure to tape down the door before letting him loose.

    1. Hi Ashlyn, be careful about grabbing the middle of the tail. I’m glad you caught him in time! I would advise you not to use the balls as they are really too small for a chinchilla’s spine and they can also cause overheating. Instead try blocking off a part of a room or use a playpen to let your chinchilla run around. He’ll have much more normal motion and you can interact with him too during this time. Mine love to use me for a springboard!

      1. Hi. Sara i was wondering ive wanted a chinchilla for 2 years now what would be one way for me to persuade my parents?

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