Search
Author: Kellie Hayden
Updated: March 22, 2024
With so many different pet toys available today, finding the best chinchilla toys and accessories can be a challenge. When learning about chinchilla toys and accessories, it should be a top priority to consider your chinchilla’s instinctual needs.
Chinchillas have four instinctual behaviors that need to be met to help keep them healthy, happy, and active. As a starting point for pet parents, good toys for chinchillas should generally focus on these behaviors:
- Exploring – Chinchillas are the Sherlock Holmes of the animal kingdom! These curious little fluffs love to check out their surroundings and discover new things.
- Playing – Anyone who has ever parented a chinchilla knows that these cute creatures are always on the go and love interaction!
- Chewing – Since chinchillas have open-rooted teeth that never stop growing, it’s important that they have an abundance of opportunities to naturally wear down their teeth. Providing chinchilla chew toys and other healthy chewable options that are made of 100% pet-safe materials plays a key role in maintaining your little one’s dental health.
- Hiding – As a prey species, chinchillas need hideouts where they can rest, relax, and re-charge. To keep your little one feeling safe and stress-free, we recommend placing hideouts in their habitat and in the places within your home where they play so they have a hiding spot when needed.
With these four behaviors in mind, here are 10 toys and accessories to help meet your chinchilla’s instinctual needs!
1. Garden Dig Box
Perfect For: Exploring, Playing, and Chewing
If your chinchilla is especially clever and needs a challenging puzzle in their life, look no further than the Garden Dig Box. This foraging station contains a multitude of interesting colors and textures to provide an enriching experience while your little one digs, flings, and chews their way to hidden tasty treats.
2. Timothy Bungalow – Large
Perfect For: Chewing and Hiding
Our Timothy Bungalow is made of 100% Timothy hay (with no chemicals, wires, or thread), and it’s 100% edible. We imagine hanging out in this hideaway is something like the Hansel and Gretel fairytale where the kids get to live in a house made of delectable treats – sans the scary witch, of course!
3. Celebration Party Pack
Perfect For: Playing and Chewing
Whether it’s their birthday, their Gotcha Day, or you just want to show your little one that you’re thinking of them, the Celebration Party Pack includes a selection of 5 great natural chews! Featuring both safe-to-chew materials and food-safe colors, your chin is sure to find one of their favorites in this natural chew assortment.
4. Harvest Stacks
Perfect For: Chewing and Playing (and Eating!)
Who says you can’t play with your food? Harvest Stacks are as enriching as they are delicious. A stack can be offered to your chinchilla right out of the package in the shape of a puck, or the puck can be broken apart into a loose pile of hay for your pet to enjoy. This is a great enrichment option for busy pet parents and hungry chinnies.
5. Poof! Chinchilla Dust
Perfect for: Playing and Exploring
While it may not be considered a traditional toy or accessory, chinchilla dust is a must-have in your pet’s enrichment arsenal. Dust bathing is a behavior that chinchillas use in the wild to stay clean, and while they also need dust baths in domesticated settings, access to dust baths can also increase your little one’s mental wellbeing. When you offer your chin their dust bath, place it in different areas of their habitat so they can scout it out and enjoy a fun bath as a reward! Bonus: the sustainable collection process for Poof! involves no strip mining, explosives, or tunneling.
6. Natural Dangly Party Pack
Perfect For: Playing and Chewing
Placing enriching items vertically in your chinchilla’s habitat will help keep your chinny stimulated as they reach and manipulate chews to grab a quick chomp! Be prepared to be in awe of your pet’s dexterity as they engage with the variety of chews in our Natural Dangly Party Pack.
7. Pull ‘n Seek
Perfect For: Exploring and Playing
The Pull ‘n Seek is perfectly chinchilla-sized and will not only conceal their favorite morsels (making for a fun game of foraging), but can also be stuffed with hay to create a mini hay feeder for your chinny while they are outside of their habitat.
8. Prime Cut Hay Hearty and Crunchy (and the Box!)
Perfect For: Exploring, Chewing, and Hiding
Many chinchilla pet parents know that a high-fiber hay is essential to their small herbivore’s diet, but they may not yet know about Oxbow’s Prime Cut Hays. Containing the taste and texture of hay your pet wants, along with the fiber they need to maintain GI health and function, this box can also become the ultimate enrichment station and is designed for hiding, chewing, and hanging natural danglies. Prime Cut Hay is sure to provide an experience that helps maintain your chinchilla’s health and happiness. In addition to Hearty and Crunchy, we offer Prime Cut Hay Soft and Lush.
9. Woven Hideout – Medium
Perfect For: Hiding
Who doesn’t want their own little woven hut to hang out in with their best buddies? Our woven hideouts come in a range of sizes and provide a cozy place for your little one to relax. Bonus: the woven hideout is washable and durable for long-term use!
10. Hide Box Hanger
Perfect For: Exploring, Chewing, and Playing
Want to challenge your chinchilla a little bit for a fun reward? Attach the Hide Box Hanger to your little one’s habitat, hide a treat in one of the boxes, and watch your chinchilla have the time of their life as they try to find and eat the treat!
Ready for more enrichment?
Has your chinchilla tried all of these products already? Take a look at all of our Enriched Life products to find your friend’s next favorite toy or accessory.
