How Hott is Too Hott?

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Julyetta

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Since I live in Canada and its FREEZING here, and I live with my chins in the basement, obviously I have to have the heat on. I have them away from any vents but just wondering how hott is to hott for them? They have never shown any sign of heat stroke or anything but still makes me worried. Thanks:)
 
If you're working with the celcius (as we are in Québec, don't know about Ontario though) it is above 20 you should watch. My chin room is aroung 65F.
 
The chin room stays between 60 -65 F. Don't like for it to go above 65 under any circumstances.
 
Brandon said:
Ears will become red, veins in ears will become visable, inactive, and laying close to the cage bottom to try to find coolness.
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thanks, Brandon. We use a woodstove in another room in the winter and just want to make sure it doesn't get too warm in Tink's room. I'm going to guess it gets about 70 in her room...
 
70 is fine for a chin room, although most people keep it at the 65 range.
I have a thermometer in Binx's room so I can monitor the exact temp. without guessing. It's very helpful and maybe you should look into getting one.
 
Like others have said, I would agree that around 70-75+ is too hot for a chin to handle. Unlike you, my basement is freezing in the summer :p and hot in the winter. I often have to shut off all vents that are open down here.
 
Brandon said:
70 is fine for a chin room, although most people keep it at the 65 range.
I have a thermometer in Binx's room so I can monitor the exact temp. without guessing. It's very helpful and maybe you should look into getting one.
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the fire is only going through the nighttime hours, for most days, so I'm not awake enough to check the temp in her room. I do have a thermometer in that part of the house, though. I know that we keep the living room at around 75 degrees or lower, and usually the rest of the house is at least 5 degrees cooler. We also have a fan that blows the heat away from Tink's cage and toward the bedrooms where we want the heat. So her room is one of the cooler in the house. During the day, the house, for the most part, is in the upper 60's which I know is ok. I'm a heat freak, I get cold easily, but I am responsible enough to know I can't have it comfortable for me with a chin as a pet...I need a fur coat like hers and I'd have it made!
 
65 degrees Fahrenheit is what I try to keep the chinchilla room temperature at. So far I haven't had a problem maintaining this temperature in my new place, but in my old place it was more difficult b/c I had my guy in the living room and it got a lot of sunshine. I made sure the curtains were closed and the cage was positioned out of the sunlight.

One summer we had a bit of a heatwave and it got up to 80 something degrees and I noticed Pip was laying on his side all stretched out; he looked hot. I put in frozen water bottles and I set up a fan in the room to cool the air down but I didn't have it blowing on him. The temps up here generally are moderate but that year it got higher than normal.

Now my guys are downstairs in a room that faces north and if anything I'm trying to keep the temp up rather than down.
 
Brandon said:
Ears will become red
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But don't be worried if your room is cool enough and you have a light-earred Chinchilla like a Beige. If they sleep with their ears folded they will become very pink when they wake up and straighten their ears out.
 
Carol~Anne said:
One summer we had a bit of a heatwave and it got up to 80 something degrees and I noticed Pip was laying on his side all stretched out; he looked hot. I put in frozen water bottles and I set up a fan in the room to cool the air down but I didn't have it blowing on him. The temps up here generally are moderate but that year it got higher than normal.
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Frozen water bottles and a fan will not keep an active chin cool. A/C is a must, even if it's just for those rare hot days. A/C is also necessary to keep humidity down. Even 70 degrees is too hot if the humidity is high and the only way to remove humidity is with an a/c or dehumidifier.
 
What about using a window unit if the chinchillas are kept in the same room the window unit is at? At our old place we had central air but now we have a window unit and I've never dealt with those yet. If we also set some fans up too?

I know our house is cold enough now because our house can't hold heat to save itself. We have to put the hedgies in my room and put an electric heater to give it the extra boost. So far they both seem ok we try to keep it so we have to wear a shirt and hooded sweatshirt to be comfortable. Cuts down on electric bill too that way :D!
 
We have a window-mounted AC in the room where our guys are. It's a very small room and the AC is on almost every day, year-round. Even in these frigid temps. The temperature is constantly monitored. So it's best to get a digital temp AC unit, rather than just one that goes from low to high.
 
I believe that the normal range is between 60 and 70 deg. Tika stays in my bedroom which is more around the range of 70 to 72, i have a thermometer sitting on top of her cage, where it should be the hottest, to make sure it never goes above 75. I have never seen her show any signs of getting over heated in the 70 range even during playtime.

As far as window units to keep the temperature down, i would just make sure it is not blowing directly on them.
 
MonteCarloChick said:
We have a window-mounted AC in the room where our guys are. It's a very small room and the AC is on almost every day, year-round. Even in these frigid temps. The temperature is constantly monitored. So it's best to get a digital temp AC unit, rather than just one that goes from low to high.
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You need to be very careful with digital window a/c. The old dial ones might not keep accurate temps (which you can do with a termometer) but if the power went out, the old dial ones would restart at the same level. Most digital air conditions have to be manually restarted if the power goes out. In this area, it's not unusual for our electricity to be lost for short periods of time during extremely hot weather and a digital a/c would be worse than no a/c at all.
 
HedgeMom said:
You need to be very careful with digital window a/c. The old dial ones might not keep accurate temps (which you can do with a termometer) but if the power went out, the old dial ones would restart at the same level. Most digital air conditions have to be manually restarted if the power goes out. In this area, it's not unusual for our electricity to be lost for short periods of time during extremely hot weather and a digital a/c would be worse than no a/c at all.
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I have a digital air conditioner (Royal Sovereign from Costco) and if the power goes out it restarts at the settings it was on before the power went out.
 
Winter months the chin room stays around 60-65. Summer we stay around 68-73ish .

I do not like the chin room much above 73.
 
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