Traveling with a Chinchilla

One of the questions that we're asked is whether it is safe to take a chinchilla on trips. Our general response is that taking your chinchilla on your travels is a bad idea.

The reasons for our response are many. Here are the top reasons to NOT travel with your chinchilla:

• Chinchillas are skittish to begin with. Moving them outside of their familiar surroundings can cause them great stress.
• If you move them very frequently, they may learn to associate your presence with the move and thus stopping trusting you.
• You don't have as much control with the environment when you travel. As a result, you may put your chinchillas in situations where the temperature and/or humidity are high enough to kill them.
• The more moving, the more likely your chinchillas will become physically harmed e.g. broken leg.

We also understand that sometimes you have no choice but to take your chinchilla with you. Breeders that attend shows are obviously taking their chinchillas to different locations with no ill-effects. So it is quite possible to do successfully. We do hope that you'll carefully examine your plans and make sure that at all stages you've considered the implications to your chinchillas.