Not pooping and digging out food?

[Rebecca1122]

I noticed that Oliver has not been pooping lately in the last hour or so.
He has been eating a lot of food and hay, but he has not been pooping.
He also was digging in his food and took some of it out.
Any reasons for this?

Thanks.

 

[Stackie]

Calm down. I'm sure he is fine. Chins are not going to poop every second of every day. As long as he is eating and acting normal he is fine.

 

[Dragonflye]

Yes, if he is eating, the poop will come- just give it time.

 

[Rebecca1122]

Okay, thanks.
What about the reason behind him digging out his pellets? Is it because he does not like them?

 

[Dragonflye]

As long as Oliver is eating some of his pellets, I would say he likes them. Digging is normal chinchilla behavior, unfortunately in this case it is wasteful. A few of my guys do this too...

 

[Rebecca1122]

Okay. Should I just put the pellets that he digs out back into the food bowl?

 

[tunes]

Rebecca - You have been on this forum since June. I'm pretty sure the stuff you are asking you have either already asked in chat or read about on forum. If you keep being neurotic around your chin, you're going to turn him into a neurotic chin. Calm down and leave him alone. Let him adjust to his new home, let him adjust to you. You're going to go crazy looking for stuff to be wrong, instead of just enjoying him.

In answer to your question, no I would not put dirty food that has been in bedding back into the bowl. Would you put food that had fallen on the floor back onto your plate?

 

[Rebecca1122]

tunes: No, but it doesn't go onto the bedding - it goes onto the wood shelf around him.

 

[Mt. Zion Chins]

that is why with digging chins I use a bowl in a bowl that way I can put some of the food back in the smaller bowl. Works for me

 

[Cuddlebug]

I place a sauce from a terra cotta flower pot under the feeder to catch most of what my diggers throw around. Every day, I dump the food in the saucer back into the feeder. Any food on the shelves or floor of the cage gets tossed out.

 

[Rebecca1122]

Oliver hasn't pooped for quite some time now...I think he last pooped around 12pm or 1pm. But I've been watching him and he has been eating.
I was trying not to be concerned, it just seems like a while since he has pooped.

 

[caiti]

My chin won't really poo much during the day. Well, she does a bit, but she eats most of it :yuck: heh.

I sweep off my chin's shelves, refill her food and hay, and spot clean her bedding etc. every morning/day. If I don't see a wicked dirty cage by night, I know I will wake up the next morning with her cage covered in poo and it always is. I think that would be the real test is wait a full 24 hours and see how much he goes. You can't judge it on a part of a day; chin aren't that consistent.

I freaked out over every single thing my chin did and I actually still do sometimes. It's hard to know when you're being paranoid and when you're being careful. I found most of the time I was being paranoid. You just have to figure it out and while it helped to have people assure me I was over reacting, it had to click in my head more so. You have to develop an intuition about some of these things and that only comes with experience and time.

So give yourself a break. Your chin isn't in his death throes in front of you. There is only a possibility of a problem, you will know more as time goes on and that's all you can do. Check him tomorrow and you can go from there.

Oh and my chin digs her food too. She does that to get the "best" pieces, I guess (I don't know how they like the taste of pellets anyways. I actually tried it once--scarred for life!).

 

[liewwan]

Check around her cage and see if she's throwing poop out lol. Normally they poo like crazy at night when they are active.
Mine loves to dig the perfect pellet and the perfect hay like crazy. They like to dump the dish too lol. Yep there's always a lot of wasted pellets
You're doing just fine, take it a day at a time and you'll eventually see whats normal and what's not normal with the chin.

 

[sheilaandroses]

Don't worry, it's not weird for you to worry so much about Oliver. I did the same thing with Kodah. Just remember to have fun with him!

 

[Rebecca1122]

Okay, thanks, everyone.
One more thing: You can't stop chins digging their food or throwing poop outside of the cage, can you?
I guess it's just something they do and something I will always have to clean up

 

[javachin]

Okay, thanks, everyone.
One more thing: You can't stop chins digging their food or throwing poop outside of the cage, can you?
I guess it's just something they do and something I will always have to clean up

When they don't do that, that's the time to worry.

 

[caiti]

Okay, thanks, everyone.
One more thing: You can't stop chins digging their food or throwing poop outside of the cage, can you?
I guess it's just something they do and something I will always have to clean up

You can't really stop chins from doing that, no. You can try to put cardboard or something around his cage (not so close so he can eat it) to try to keep all the poo in one place on the floor so it's easier to clean up. This is also why I made my cage with a 8" base and lips on all the shelves!

The food digging thing--maybe try to put a minimum amount in the bowl, as in only as much as he eats in a day (a couple tablespoons or so, depends on the chin of course) to see if that deters him. I like the bowl inside a bowl idea, that seems like a good one to try. Or get a deep bowl. I notice when my chin digs, it doesn't always fall out if she doesn't have too much food in it and it's at the bottom of the bowl. You'd have to make sure he can still reach his food, though. I know my chin digs a bit but she's not that bad so I haven't had to figure out any real solutions on my own that I could share with you. Most of us have a system of cage cleaning (weekly and quick daily) so cleaning up poo and pellets will just kind of become second nature and you won't think about it after a while, you'll just do it. It doesn't take that long once you get the hang of it.