Grooming needs!

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Blarklark

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 1, 2009
Messages
75
Location
New England
Hey guys. I was curious when it comes to grooming a chin. I know it doesn't stop at just giving them a dust bath. To keep the hair from getting all over the room how do you comb it out properly. Is there a specific comb? Been watching a lot of video's but want to know what you all think :). Thanks.
 
Unless the chin is being shown or gets something in it's fur you really don't need to brush it. When they are priming, just give them a few extra dust baths is really all you need to do.

However if you really want to, what I use is a fine/medium toothed double sided cat comb, like this, but any fine toothed comb will work. Real chinchilla grooming combs are basically a row of needles and can easily hurt your chin if you don't know what you are doing so it's best to go with rounded tipped combs. To groom them you actually want to groom from tail to head, so get a good grip on the base of the tail and start from the tail and gently comb working upward in small sections. Give a dust bath after you brush, not before, or you will damage the coat. The dust also works into the fur better after brushing.
 
If you are only supposed to dust them, do they just naturally she everywhere? I remember having to clean out my ac unit and finding layers of chin hair all in the filters. Fed them oxbow pellet and lots of hey.
 
Yeah they shed, but I don't notice clumps of fur like with a cat or dog, even when I had around a dozen chins at one time. Chins don't shed all the time either, just a few times a year. Most of the fur seems to be in and around the cage and that gets vacuumed up during daily cleaning along with the poops. Also as I said before, during priming (shedding), all you really need to do is give a few extra dust baths to help the fur work it's way out. You do end up with some fur in the dust bath as well.

I'm not saying not to comb the chin if you want to, just that it's not required. A healthy well cared for chin's fur shouldn't need to be combed to prevent matting or anything. With regular dust baths the fur should naturally all shed out without issue and without the human needing to do anything. It will for sure cut down on the amount of fur around the cage if you do comb them during shedding though. The chin will also look better during the shedding if you comb the fur out too, some chins shed weird (in patches rather then in a nice line) and can look scruffy during shedding.

Maybe your chins shed more then my 2 guys, or you didn't vacuum everyday? When I clean the filter in my ac in the summer, I only have to do it about once or twice a month, and it's normally because of dust buildup not layers of fur.
 
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