Chin-Chiller: Will It Really Cool Your Chinchilla?
We prefer to avoid reviewing an item that we haven't actually owned, but when we read about a product called the Chin-Chiller, we couldn't resist.
The description of the chin-chiller indicates that it remains cooler than the ambient temperature and thus provides a way to keep your chinchilla cool. This is bogus! How can something without external power remain cooler than the air temperature around it?
What is more likely is that the material that these Chin-Chillers are made of is a good conductor. As such, it feels like it is cooler to the touch because it conducts the heat from whatever touches it. But if the air is warmer than the chinchilla then the Chin-Chiller isn't going to have any effect.
This product is akin to a fan. When a fan blows air on your face you feel cooler. But the air isn't any cooler because it is being blown around by a fan. At best you're feeling cooler because the moving air is pushing away the air close to your face that you've warmed up and replacing it with slightly cooler air in the room.
(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
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It won't be less than room temp. but the point is that a chinchilla is warmer than the slab of rock even if that slab is at room temperature. So, it lying on it will draw some heat out of the chinchilla (same reason it feels colder to touch as it is at room temp and not 37°C human body temp). The slab has a good capacity to draw/store heat and should generally be enugh to cool them down, obviously the warmer the temperature the less effective it will be.
Theoretically, if the chinchilla used it continuously/long periods of time it would become the same temp as the chinchilla and would be a lot less useful but if a chin is overheating that is temporary and would still provide a bit of cooling. Basically, if its colder than the chinchilla body temp it should work, and the colder the better.
these do work you just have to put them in the fridge or freezer until use. these are mainly just made for power outages or when your ac systems stops working. if you actually did any research you would have seen that. and yes theses only work for a short amount of time that's why they come in packs of 3 or 4.
The commentary here is disputing the manufacturer's claim that a chin-chiller remains cooler than the ambient temperature. Obviously if you pull something out of the freezer it will be cold.
hey. i got one of these just today. i have a problem with people saying it is impossible for it to be below room temperature as it is not. its simple. they take a long time to reach room temperature so this is why they are good. my dad makes a black forest gateau and has a marble block specifiaclly for this to harden melted chocolate as it is always colder than the room. also they absorb heat really well so when a chinchilla jumps on it and is hot these slabs will absorb the heat from them.
these work very well but it is a TEMPORARY solution. all it is, is a piece of granite. you can get a bigger piece at home depot for a lot less.
In that case, I'd make sure that the granite isn't coated with any kind of sealer, I would also clean it with Dawn soap and allow it to dry before putting it in the cage. Items from home improvement stores often have a layer of dust on them. I know this because that was the case with a piece of marble tile I bought for a different purpose.
I haven’t bought one, but I did go to Home Depot and get porcelain tile samples. The tilt samples are the same size, they are not coated or anything. They work the same way the granite chill stones do. Just wash them with hot soapy water or hot vinegar solution and rinse and dry well before freezing them. Change out as often as you need to, and you can use multiple tiles in the same cage. Depending on how hot your chins room gets. As long as humidity plus temp are below 150 then your chin is good. Our local pet store gave us this idea when we saw them in their small animal cages. You can get the tile samples at any place that sells tile flooring, and they are usually less than $2 per piece. Sometimes you can find them for free. Our chin loves her stones. She runs, then gets on the stone to cool down. We set it at the base of her wheel.
I own a Chin Chiller also (a cut piece of granite), and it does feel cool to the touch, and Chin Chin spends a lot of time on it eating his treats and lounging on it. I have never put mine in the freezer and feel it does a good job.
I own a chin-chiller and my chinchilla (Bottles) loves it! On warm days she chooses to sleep on it instead of in her house. On really hot days I will put it in the freezer for a little while and it remains really cool for a good amount of time.
i have one two, i see my chinchilla CiCi on it alll the time. i also put one in her little shelter so she can be in her area while being cool
I agree that you shouldnt review an item you havent owned. Especially to call it bogus. The chin-chillers are made of either mable or granite. All types of rock are very poor conductors of heat, unlike what you review stated. The whole concept of the chin-chillers makes perfect sense to me. I have slate floors that my dogs love to lay on during the hotest parts of the day in summer. Unless the sun is shining directly on the floor, its stay very cool, even when the air is hot. I believe thats the same idea. I have 2 granite pieces for my chinchilla. And putting it in the fridge or freezer makes it even cooler.
For anyone who has or is planning on getting a chinchilla, you should get one of these. But dont purchase from pet stores! I got mine for free at a granite counter supplier. They have tons of scrap pieces and let me pick what I wanted. Even if you have to pay, it will be much cheaper than a pet store price. Just make sure you smooth the edges before letting your chinchilla use it. If you dont have access to a stone grinder, a metal file works fine.
Sorry, but you are confused with your thermodynamics. I think you have mixed up conductor with insulator. Many rocks (granite for sure) are very good thermal conductors and, hence, poor thermal insulators. That is why your dogs lie on them in the heat, they conduct heat very quickly from your dogs and pass that energy along to adjacent materials also quickly. That is what conductivity is. I think the poster was correct that it is a bogus claim (but I think the manufacturer is just confusing high thermal conductivity with actually being a colder temperature).
I had the same problem in my house with keeping the tempature down on hot days, but I live neer the beach and didn't want to bring the humidity up any higher with ice in the cage or on top. What worked really nice for my chinchillas was dry ice. I placed the block of dry ice in a collinder on top of the cage and then a bigger bowl (upside down) on top of that. The collinder holes let the cold ail flow down into thier cage. The bowl on top of the collinder was just to make sure the cold air didn't escape out of the collinder. I then plased a sheet over the cage, it kept all the cold air in the cage. My chinchillas LOVED it. They sat directly under it on a ledge about a foot away. You can feel the cold air coming off the ice and it last a long time. The best part is that dry ice does not have water in it and does not increase humidity at all.
Some warnings!!!
Dry ice will burn if they come into contact with it. So make sure ice is kept in a collinder so that as the pieces shrink they don't fall into cage. Also keep an eye on the tempature as the ice works very well and you don't want them to get to cold. also make sure the highest leadge in the cage is at least a foot away from the ice. The chinchillas will try to cuddle with the top of the cage and that will burn them.
Another big warning here for those who think to try this: dry ice is solid carbon dioxide. If you completely cover the cage, it will fill up with CO2 as the dry ice sublimates (melts)... CO2 is heavier than air and will end up suffocating your Chinchilla. There is a lot of CO2 in a tiny bit of dry ice.
Thank god someone said it. I was about to say the same thing! Lots of ventilation don't suffocate them with carbon monoxide!
Tina... you're joking right? Why would you even risk this. It's SO dangerous!
these work well i put mine in the freezer and they get very cold in about 5 minutes i dont have the actual thing but my dad is a tile setter and we had some granite tiles in the garage i cut them up into blocks and we switch them out every 30-40 mins our chinchilla pepper really likes it after playtime and i live in west Texas so it gets very hot even with central air.i saw these at the store you can get a large granite tile for about the same price as one of these small chinchilla chillers but i would recommend it
A frozen anything is going result in a lot of condensation because of the high humidity. And wet fur is not good. In addition, a frozen jug will only cool a small area and will do nothing to reduce humidity. We don't think it's a good solution. Your best bet is to get a window unit for the room in which you're keeping your chinchilla.
It is a hot summer where we are and we have high humidity as well. My family works during the day which is great for sleep time for our chinchilla Chili but it gets hot (close to 78) most places in our house. We have an a/c unit in our bedroom and have moved her cage in there but there really isn't enough room for the cage and she doesn't seem to like it as much. I was wondering about the frozen jug idea. What kind of jugs (plastic?)? How much water in them? How long does it last? I also have a chinchilla chiller and she loves it but to keep it cold we have to put and ice pack on it and that doesn't last all day and it is only in one part of the cage. How long does that frozen sheet trick last??
Thank you in advance for any help that you could give us.
Alana,
That's a good tip. The thickness of the brick probably helps to keep the stone cooler too. For emergencies we have two frozen jugs of water ready. When needed, we'll place these on top of the cage so that cold air will drop down on the cage. We can knock the temperature down by 10 degrees with this method and came in very handy one summer when we lost power. We have another post about emergency cooling.
Another, cheaper alternative that I use is taking a brick and putting it in the fridge then into the cage. Living in Arizona, it's a must for my chins. But bricks are much cheaper, especially when one is always in the fridge.
Thanks for the clarification, Tina! Keeping the Chin-Chiller in the fridge sounds like a good idea.
Our main objection is with the product description that reads, "...naturally maintains a surface temperature below room temperature." This is impossible.
The chinchilla chiller actually is supposed to be kept in the fridge until used. It is very cold to the touch (like marble) and my chinchillas really like it.
I had it ready recently in the fridge for them after returning from a long car trip.
It won't stay cold in the cage forever but it's great for those times when the chinchillas need to cool down.