Chinchilla won't jump

[SirCumference]

I have two chinchillas, both aged 8 months, that I got one month ago. I heard to wait 2 weeks or so before letting them out for their first play time, and I did. But now I've come across a problem. One chinchilla, McKinley, is an active little guy (he'll bounce around the entire room and jump up onto everything, including my head ^-^). But the other, Copernicus, won't jump. He climbs out of his cage and only stays on the floor level of everything because he simply won't jump. He only ever climbs. I know he /can/ jump, because he does it whenever he needs to get over their hay house to get to the food bowls, but that's the only time he will. He shows no other sign of injury. Until he starts jumpin, I can't get him back into the cage any other way than in his carrier. He won't jump up onto the block that serves as an entrance to their cage.

Could he be hurt? Is he just really lazy? Has anyone else experience something like this?

 

[SirCumference]

Oh, it might also be relevant to add that Copernicus refuses to run on the wheel too. All he does is sit and climb.

 

[corinajanelle]

My chin is a bit like that too, he has started to become more comfortable with jumping, and uses his perches more and more, but he still is not very good at landing his jumps. I think a lot of it was that the breeder had him in a much smaller, one-level cage, but now his home is much larger and taller. He is just learning at his own pace.

 

[Chinups]

One of our chins was that way too when he was younger. We ended up making a few "ramps" for him that helped him build his confidence enough to start jumping. The ramps were cardboard tubes set at an angle to get from the lower level to the top of whatever we thought was at a safe height. First, he used to crawl through the tubes to get to the next level. Then, he started walking/sliding on top of them instead. Finally, he started jumping off the top of them halfway down from the top to the bottom. Soon after, he didn't use them at all and just started jumping directly to the next level. It was fun to watch his entire learning experience.

We got the cardboard tubes from Home Depot's carpet section. They let us have it for free and we cut it into several different lengths.

 

[Oregon_chinlove4]

I have had my Robbin for around 6 months now, he's 3, and is not much of a jumper. He prefers to climb as well. I know he can jump and has no problem doing so when necessary, but he just prefers to climb or walk around his cage. I've taken him to the vet, just to check up on everything and had them do an x-ray and he was totally fine!