HELP! Adding more into their cage.

[SLChinnies13]

I am not sure how the people who had them before me took care of them but I want them in a way better set up.

Do your chins chew the **** out of your wooden shelves? And pee on them or are they "potty trained"? All they do is chew every single thing they can get a hold of and also pee all over the wood. It gets disgusting. Do I have to keep changing it very often or is there a way to work around this?

Any advice on making their home better would be awesome. I also bought them hammocks and they ate those too.

 

[MyzarandGemma]

My chins are pretty potty trained, or so it seems after two weeks ha ha. If they are peeing on the shelves, you could sand them every so often so that they don't smell as bad. Unfortunately, asking a chin not to chew is like asking you not to breathe. It's nature and so I would suggest either making or buying a crap ton of chew toys. I have an entire Tupperware box of them and have already gone through quite a few in the two weeks my boys have been home.

Was the hammock fleece? My boys don't like their fleece hammock and never go in it. They gave the fleece tube and fleece hides house a nibble and decided they were in love with both I think offering variety is the best options as far as chews, sleeping places and so on are concerned.

 

[AZChins]

That's the problem with wooden shelves. You could offer a litter pan on the shelf they are urinating on so that the shelves don't get wet. The shelves will always get chewed no matter how many other toys you have. Some chins just want to chew shelves and ledges, that's just how it goes. You may want to invest in some more shelves to replace them.

If they are urinating on their shelves, I recommend scrubbing them down from time to time and then setting them in the sun to dry or baking them to get the moisture off of them. Wood can harbor a lot of bad bacteria, and even if that bacteria doesn't make the chins ill the shelves may stink to high heaven. It's a good idea to always sterilize things that have been urinated on because of the chance of bacteria growth from the moisture.

Try a litter pan made of maybe a small baking dish with some shavings in it. That tends to work very well at discouraging urinating on the shelves themselves.

 

[jess32247]

My chin is potty trained, but that doesn't stop her from having a few "accidents" here and there. I use a solution of 50/50 white vinegar and water to clean the mess then let it air dry. It usually doesn't stain, unless the urine sat over night without me seeing it.

If your chin is chewing the fleece hammock, then you'll need to take out ALL the fleece in the cage. Some chins prefer to chew on ledges instead of hanging toys or loose wood, there isn't much you can do but replace the ledges when they get to worn down.

AZChins, can you bake the wood/ledges with the hardware in it? Or would you need to take the hanger bolt out? I've been really wanting to rebake some natural perches I made, but getting the hanger bolt in was such a pain and I'm sure taking them out would be too.

 

[becky12883]

You can bake shelves, ledges and perches with the hardware on. You only want the over to get to about 200F. I usually swap out shelves about once a month for the boys that chew and pee on them. I take one out, put new one in and then sand, scrub and bake the one I took out so it's ready to go back in the cage in a month. I tried to go without a pee pan for a while because they were just peeing everywhere. I was hoping that they would just use the shavings on the bottom of the cage, but it didn't work. They soaked their shelves. When I put the pee dish back in they started using it more than ever before. I'm not sure if they missed the dish or they didn't want to pee on the new shelves.

 

[AZChins]

Oh yeah, like Becky said...you can bake the shelves with the hardware on, no problem! Chins are so different, some will very dutifully go to the bottom to urinate and some just have to go wherever. The litter pans often work really well. I have couple that I use here even in the cages that have only one level to keep them from peeing where I don't want them to go.

 

[jess32247]

Thank you Becky and AZChins! I wasn't sure is the metal would leech something out or contaminate the wood, just wanted to double check

Another note on the potty training, I have two pee dishes in my chin's cage, one for the top and another for the bottom. Spends most of her time up top and feels most comfortable there, so she uses the top pee dish much more than the bottom. It's also more convenient for her, sometimes she doesn't want to jump all the way down just to use the potty