Free to roam?

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kardelen

Active member
Joined
Mar 16, 2014
Messages
43
Location
Athens
Astrid is doing well and she gets her playtime everyday in a restricted area and under supervision.
Is there a right time to let her lose on a chin proof room to roam?(always under supervision)
i've seen vids were the chins walk and run around the rooms freely and i would like to manage and have her out running and playing in my room.

so is there a right time?should it be attemted now that she is still so young or should i wait till she gets older?
 
Once your chin is at least 6 months old playtime in a chin proofed room is fine, until then playtime should be no longer then 10-15 mins max per day. Keep in mind though chin proofed does mean that there are no cords the chin can get, nothing she can chew on that it shouldn't, there is no where she can go that you can't easily grab her and is ALWAYS supervised when out of the cage, no leaving room for even a minute. There have been too many horror stories about someone decided to let the chin run loose and it ends up stepped on, sat on, electrocuted, eating something it shouldn't and/or ending up under something or in something (like walls), getting squished by the door by someone coming into the room not realizing the chin is out, among other problems. If the chin gets hurt (it happens chin's are good at getting hurt on things that make you wonder "how?", lol) it will try to hide and if there is somewhere for it to go that you can't get it (You said you want to have her play in your room, so dresser? bed?) you will have a serious problem. I use a spare, pretty much empty (it has a table and a couple chairs), room if I want to give my guys a larger area to play. Otherwise I use fencing to make a play area around the cage and just open the cage door so they can come and go as they please. A lot of people use bathrooms since there is generally no furniture and things with cords are generally up high or can be unplugged and put safely away.

As for seeing videos, well... you see a lot of stupid things and animal cruelty and/or improper care online these days. In regards to chins, there are videos of chins in pools, being chased by cats and/or dogs, playing and/or living with rabbits/guinea pigs/degus, eating junk food such as Doritos, etc, none of that is safe.
We even had someone on this forum claim several months back they had their whole house chin proofed and that their chin had free roam of the house even when they went out, and argued with us when we told them it was dangerous. They ended up looking for sympathy from us when their chin got electrocuted, luckily it survived (that time anyway) but unfortunately they said they had no intention of changing their ways and I think left the forum.
 
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