Too much play time?

[Cruezer]

I let my chinchilla out for play time for an hour or two a day and I wait for him to go back into his cage because he hates being picked up and I don't wanna scare, hurt, or bother him. As soon as I close the cage door and play time is over, he starts chewing on the wire and standing up and begging to be let out. His cage always has food and tons of toys, so there's not reason he should want out so badly. Is this normal behavior? Is it some kind of ego battle, where he thinks I'm trying to belittle him by putting him back in his cage? Does he have an ego from being allowed out too much?

 

[Cuddlebug]

He is being a typical chinchilla. They often act like they have not had enough playtime. It is nothing to worry about.

 

[SamiJami]

Zipper used to do that. We got into the habit of letting him go in, closing him up, then petting the jeebers outta him til he tips over out of bliss. That stopped the bar chewing completely!

 

[Cruezer]

Yay! Glad to hear it's normal behavior. Thanks!

 

[Marie5656]

With Trixie, I am noticing that as she gets older (she is 7 now) she is wanting less playtime. I use a pet carrier to bring her to her playroom. Often now, after 30 or 40 minutes, she is putting herself back into the carrier to be brought home. But then other days, if I am taking a break from playtime, she is bouncing all over her cage, running in her wheel, demanding to go out.

 

[jess32247]

My chin can never get enough play time. I used to let her out for 6 hours a day (can you tell I have no life LOL), because her cage was tiny and filled with wire, she hated it. She would go back in and still beg to come out.

Then I got her a new cage, now she's more than happy to sleep the day away in her fleece tube. She still gets a hour or two of play time, but I have her cage door open long than that. Whenever I close it for the night and put her back in, she instally starts chewing on the bars and begging to be let out. It's normal behavior!

 

[xtoff]

i was never expecting this either. it's hard to watch sometimes unless of course it's after they've been getting into too much trouble during playtime than i'm more than happy to get them back to safety. I don't mean they were in extreme danger but you know how sneaky they are. They act like they wanna be independant but what would they do without us if they had free roam of the house or even outside. mine would probably beg to come back home and run and hind under their cage.

 

[Newt]

Poppy used to bar bite to get attention when she wanted something. Sometimes she wanted out, sometimes she wanted a treat or a scritch. But if she'd already had playtime, plus heaps of scritches and a treat, then it was her way of begging for more.
Hard as it was, I had to just ignore her. Eventually, when she realised she wasn't always going to get her way, she stopped the bar biting.
Giving them attention every time they bar bite just reinforces the behaviour I guess!