Pets definitely are not allowed to inhabit the place where I live, but after my friend offered me a kitten for $30 that was medicated and came with food, litter, and a litter box, my roommate and I started to think about how we could house a cat in our 8 person suite. Well, all of our hopes and dreams came crashing down when one of the suitemates told us that she was allergic to cats, but that we could get a dog. Yeah, let us hide a Golden Retriever. The next animal we looked into getting was a chinchilla. This was because we heard that they were easy maintenance and that they did not smell.
How are chinchillas as pets? Well, they are little and weigh about a pound. They are very furry and soft with cute ears and do not make annoying noises, but they are very energetic. As for the noises that they do make, they have the ability to chirp, squeak, and bark, so they are pretty interesting creatures. They are partially nocturnal and do not enjoy being disturbed during the day. They are high strung and have short attention spans. This makes them pretty skittish and most of them do not like to be held–making them not so suitable for children. Once a chincilla is accustomed to its owner it could become very attracted to this owner and allow the owner to freely touch its soft fur.
Chinchillas like to eat desert grasses because they cannot efficiently process fatty foods, high protein foods, or too many green plants. A lot of chinchilla owners feed their pets high quality, hay-based pellets, and they keep a constant supply of loose hay in order to sufficiently meet all of the chinchilla’s dietary needs.
The best thing about chinchillas is that they do not typically smell because they do not sweat. What this does mean is that chinchillas do not fair well in hot (over 80 degrees F) or humid weather because they can get overheated and may suffer from heat stroke. They clean their fur by taking dust baths. This dust that they roll around in is special chinchilla dust made of fine pumice.
Chinchillas can be gray, beige, white, ebony, and many other colors.
