I was giving the chins a dust bath a few weeks ago and I noticed kiwi decided to pile it all up into a corner and decided to sit in it. It then occurred to me that even though we use the recommended amount of dust it says on the jar, I had no idea what size bath house that amount would be good for. I then though about how kiwi continued to get clumps of fur stuck in her hair and I wondered if I had dust baths right?
My question is: how deep should a dust bath be? I did a search and I saw like an inch. This was much deeper than the ~1/4" or less they were getting. We decided to get a mini hamster cage and wrap it up with a layer of fleece so that the room didn't completely fill with dust. The cage is a cylinder with a diameter of about a foot. A bath with that area took a lot of dust to fill up to the ~3/4" we gave them. And to be honest, it doesn't feel right.
They also seem to temporarily rub their eyes and possibly wheeze after their bath with that much dust. I cant be sure though because I only observed one dust bath since we changed it. My girlfriend says that they seem alright. When I saw them today they didn't do either of those, but somebody sneezed a few times, which they usually didn't do before except right after or during a dust bath. I don't thing I have enough data to make an assumption here, but I'd say that from what I've seen so far I'm not super concerned because it appears temporary which would be pretty normal if you were to flop around in a pile of dust.
One last point: This new container has little ventilation so the dust doesn't get everywhere, as a result, the air in the bath is super dusty. We leave the door open so they can enter and exit the dust bath whenever they'd like, as it's in their cage. But kiwi will sit in there for quite some time. Is this a problem or should we consider making it more ventilated for the 15 minutes they get it?
On the other hand, I just asked, and it seems that in the two weeks that they have had the deep bath, kiwi's fur clumps have not returned. I've noticed a few posts here and there about chinnies with fur clumps, and a lot of articles I've seen about dust baths neglect to recommend a depth, so there might be a connection there.
My question is: how deep should a dust bath be? I did a search and I saw like an inch. This was much deeper than the ~1/4" or less they were getting. We decided to get a mini hamster cage and wrap it up with a layer of fleece so that the room didn't completely fill with dust. The cage is a cylinder with a diameter of about a foot. A bath with that area took a lot of dust to fill up to the ~3/4" we gave them. And to be honest, it doesn't feel right.
They also seem to temporarily rub their eyes and possibly wheeze after their bath with that much dust. I cant be sure though because I only observed one dust bath since we changed it. My girlfriend says that they seem alright. When I saw them today they didn't do either of those, but somebody sneezed a few times, which they usually didn't do before except right after or during a dust bath. I don't thing I have enough data to make an assumption here, but I'd say that from what I've seen so far I'm not super concerned because it appears temporary which would be pretty normal if you were to flop around in a pile of dust.
One last point: This new container has little ventilation so the dust doesn't get everywhere, as a result, the air in the bath is super dusty. We leave the door open so they can enter and exit the dust bath whenever they'd like, as it's in their cage. But kiwi will sit in there for quite some time. Is this a problem or should we consider making it more ventilated for the 15 minutes they get it?
On the other hand, I just asked, and it seems that in the two weeks that they have had the deep bath, kiwi's fur clumps have not returned. I've noticed a few posts here and there about chinnies with fur clumps, and a lot of articles I've seen about dust baths neglect to recommend a depth, so there might be a connection there.
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