You have two options when it comes to cages for chinchillas. You can build your own or you can buy one ready-made. We've actually done both.
Our first cage was typical of pet store cages. Its dimensions measured 3 feet x 1.5 feet x 2 feet and it had two levels. It seemed to be a decent size for one chinchilla, but it didn't take long before we started to think about coming up with our own design. The main advantage of a store bought cage is immediate availability. Pre-built cages can also be reasonably priced given the economies of scale inherent in mass produced products.
Our second cage was one we designed and built. We wanted to build something as large as possible, but still be small enough to move around our house as needed. This meant the cage had to be no wider than 2 feet so that it could fit through a doorway. The length was determined by figuring out what we could maneuver around the hallways of our home. This turned out to be 4 feet. And the height was also 4' mostly because of the size of the materials that we selected (more about that below).
The custom chinchilla cage we built has a 5-sided base (i.e. 4 walls and a bottom) made out of melamine. Melamine is particle board covered with white plastic that is easy to clean with Windex and a paper towel. To make moving the cage easy, we attached strong caster wheels to the bottom of each of the 4 corners.
The sides and top of the cage are made out of white Elfa shelving you can buy from the Container Store. Holding the whole thing together are 1-inch square pieces of wood that run length-wise or width-wise throughout the cage. These pieces of wood also provide support for wooden shelves (4 levels) that the chinchillas can jump onto. The Elfa walls and ceiling form another 5-sided box that sits within the melamine base. Both the melamine bottom and Elfa have a door to allow for entry to and exit from the cage.
To make the cage easier to clean, we put together a 5-sided wooden box which we filled with bedding as a cue to our chinchillas. The wooden box also has a melamine bottom, but it has pine sides since they're exposed and may be chewed.
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August 27th, 2006 at 7:36 am
Denise,
Chinchillas, for the most part, don't bite. They only time ours have bitten us is when our fingers have had raisin residue on them. Even then the bite didn't pierce the skin and didn't hurt for more than a split second.
There's no good way to catch a chinchilla that is on the loose. You might be inclined to grab them by the tail, but we don't recommend that. Rather than trying to catch them, we prefer to get them to move back to their cage. After doing this a few times your chinchilla will learn that when they are being "chased" they can "escape" by running to their cage.
August 26th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
How do you catch them when they are loose. I haven't tried to let mine go yet. I am afraid to. I don't know if he bites or not. Do they bite? What would a bite feel like.
August 14th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Trish,
We considered using melamine for the shelves, but decided against it. To use melamine, we'd need to protect the edges somehow so that it couldn't be chewed. But you're right, melamine would be much easier to clean and would likely last longer than the pine shelves we settled on.
Aside from being safe, the shelves also offer a back up for providing ways for our chinchillas to keep the growth of their teeth in check. Despite providing many alternatives, our chinchillas chew on the shelves.
August 14th, 2006 at 8:10 am
I love your cage. What a great design. I like the fact that you can open the door and walk in to clean. No bending and contorting your body to get those store bought cage shelves cleaned. Was there a reason that you didn't use Melamine for the shelves. Wouldn't that be easier to wash down than the pine shelves. I'm thinking of building something like this and thought about melamine for the shelves instead. Please advise. Thanks so much for your web site and for showing off your terrific cage.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Lauren,
That is a fairly common size for a chinchilla cage. It fits in to the category of what we consider to be a starter cage. Our opinion is that it is small especially if you need to be away for a few days and can't let your chinchilla out to run around. However, at the same time we are aware that chinchilla ranchers often use even smaller cages with seemingly no ill-effects to their chinchillas.