Plastic is bad, m'kay?

They rarely take turns like this

When I first met my chinchillas-to-be I saw something in their habitat that horrified me. They had a bath, one of the plastic models, the one shaped like a house. It had been completely gnawed away so that unless you knew what it was, you'd never guess it had been house-shaped.

Plastic is bad for chinchillas. They have a strong need to gnaw, as their teeth are constantly growing, and as chinchilla owners know, they enjoy grinding their teeth on lava. That's like filing your nails with a coarse grinder the size of a brick with the texture of basalt. Their teeth are STRONG, and need constant wearing down.

The guinea pigs have ONE plastic toy, and they're too interested in its contents to eat the container

With chewing comes consuming, and an animal chewing on plastic will inevitably ingest some of it. This can kill. Chinchillas, guinea pigs, and other rodents have tiny little digestive systems that can't deal with chunks of plastic.

The pee pad held in place with a binder clip protects the section of coroplast the pigs enjoy munching

Guinea pigs can be around plastic unless you notice them chewing it. Then it's hands off. I use a pee pad and a binder clip to protect the upper edge of the ramps in the guinea pig mansion, as River really likes to chew them. Sometimes the pigs will nibble on another part of the coroplast, but only at these two spots did they really dig in.

You don't want to see that cozy cube after a few weeks of chinchilla use. Trust me.

With my chinchillas, I keep the plastic to an absolutely minimum. Even their water bottle has very little plastic that can be reached by the pet. Fabric, ceramic, stone, and kiln-dried pine wood products are usually okay. We DO have a plastic bath, and it "stays in shape" because I only let them play with the bath for a short period of time. So far, our bath is whole.