weighing in

[halfstache]

I was just curious how often most people weigh their chinchillas and what method they use to do so. I have a small kitchen scale which I use, but find it time consuming to set it down and wait for the chinchillas to explore the scale and accidentally weigh themselves for me. Its especially annoying when the little buggers step on the buttons that either resets it, turns it off, or changes any of the settings. I've tried just keeping them inside of a dust house and weighing them with the house, but it seems like there must be a better way to go about it.

 

[Chinchilla63]

My vet uses a plastic tupperware container with a lid that she punched holes in so they can breathe.
I use a plastic container with fairly high sides and zero out the scale before I put them in. They take a few seconds to plan how to escape and that usually gives me time to get the weight.

 

[starleomach]

I only weigh when i think something is amiss. I used to weigh once q month but when it got to taking hours to get them all done.....

 

[Snickers]

I too used to weigh once a month. I am going to try to weigh them every six months. If I believe they are pregnant once a week. Babies every day until they are a month old, then every other day after that. I use a kitchen scale. I have one that I have to put in a show cage to weigh her, otherwise the rest of them will just sit there.

 

[Gumby and Elmo]

I just put my kitchen scale in their cage and have a couple of oats in my palm, lead one onto the scale, when I'm done with one, I gently push him off and then lead the other one onto it.

 

[Caroline]

I used to use the dustbath method but Gracie wasn't cooperating. So what I did was I placed the scale under her hidyhouse, zeroed it out and waited until she went inside of it. Immediately I got her weight without any stress. Immediately after that she got me as I was removing the scale from under her house. Man she has good aim!