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CONTENTS:
| Introduction: | Feeding | Hoarding Activities |
| Behavioural Requirements for Mental Wellbeing | Housing | Drinking |
| Life Expectancy | Colour Varieties | Breeding |
Meet the Chipmunks: (pictures here!) - my pet chipmunks from 1995 to the present day...this page is regularly updated
Want a Chipmunk ?? Chipmunk Babies for Sale Here !!
Chipmunks have been kept as pets for years and years (probably about 30). The actor Marlon Brando used to have one which would sit on his shoulder.
So what on earth is a Chipmunk, anyway ?
Proper Chipmunks are NOT large creatures with human voices, resembling human children and called 'Alvin', 'Simon', or 'Theodore'. They are actually much more like the original chipmunk cartoon characters, 'Chip' and 'Dale'.
Chipmunks first evolved in the Oligocene period, 38 million years ago. They belong to the same animal 'family' as Tree Squirrels (Sciuridae) and Ground Squirrels (Marmotini), and are biologically and ecologically midway between the two. Chipmunks are small brownish creatures, with a series of dark-brown and off-white stripes running longitudinally along the back. They also have cheek pouches similar to hamsters, in which they carry food from one place to another. These pouches can expand to the same size as the chipmunk's head.
In Britain Chipmunks are fairly popular as pets. To keep them happy and healthy they need an extremely large cage ( 2 metres by 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres) with added amusements as they are active, intelligent animals and get bored easily. I have been keeping them since 1995. They are wonderful creatures and hours of fun can be had just watching them.
If handled from a very young age, they easily become hand tame. Most Chipmunks sold in pet shops will not be hand tame. In my opinion, a hand tame chipmunk kept as a pet has a much less stressful life than a pet chipmunk which is not tame. This is because they enjoy human company, and will tolerate being touched, picked up and examined by people. They will even play 'games' with people, such as running after balls of paper or treats thrown for them, and opening matchboxes to reach sunflower seeds I put inside for them. They get quite cheeky sometimes, trying to steal food from my dinner plate as a cat would, and running away with a pen I had been writing with. Hand tame chipmunks can be obtained by handtaming a very young chipmunk during or immediately after weaning; or aquiring an already handtamed one from a chipmunk breeder. It is almost impossible to tame an adult 'wild' chipmunk so far that it will tolerate being touched - with enough time, patience and effort they will just about muster enough courage to to take sunflower seeds offered from human fingers.
A 'wild' chipmunk would have an extremely miserable life in captivity, spending most of its' time hiding, terrified of the humans around it. Because of their small size and acrobatic squirrel agility, they are almost impossible to catch unless they want to be caught. 'Wild' chipmunks will attack and bite if frightened and cornered, and this would make any nescessary visits to the Vet very dangerous. I have only been bitten once, trying to rescue an escaped 'wild' chipmunk from a cat. Even though I was wearing thick leather motorcycle gloves at the time, the chipmunk's teeth drew blood and the bite was very painful.
A Word of Warning Regarding Cats :
It is NOT advisable to keep Chipmunks if you also keep cats as pets. Cats find chipmunks fascinating, irresistible, and extremely tasty, and will go to great lengths to create an opportunity to catch one. Our first pair of chipmunks, Maxim and Liam, fell victim to a cat attack (details in Max's section of 'Meet the Chipmunks'). . Max was injured by the cat, but unfortunately Liam was killed and eaten.
Behavioural Requirements for Mental Wellbeing:
To remain happy and healthy, chipmunks need to be able to carry out as many of its' natural instinctual behaviours as are possible in a captive environment (as does ANY other captive creature). They need to have the opportunity to:
Explore exciting areas (any area appears to be exciting to a chipmunk !);
Climb;
Leap (chipmunks are expert at judging distances);
Burrow;
Gnaw on wooden objects (to keep their constantly growing incisor teeth short);
Conceal stashes / caches / hoards of food to find and eat later;
Chipmunks eat most grain and seed types, though a few are dangerous for them and must be avoided.
Definitely unsafe foods are: unripe acorns (contain excess tannin), plum stones (contain cyanide), excessive peanuts (because they can swell inside the animal), and the woods mentioned below, in 'Housing'.
Safe foods are: sunflower seed, wheat, rye, maize, oats, canary seed, buckwheat, millet, melon seeds, orange, apple, pear, cherry, gooseberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, black/red/white currants, pomegranate, figs, stoned plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, dried banana slices, raisins, sultanas, lettuce, tomato, peapods, corn on the cob, cucumber, brussels sprouts, rose petals, dandelion leaves and flowers, chickweed, walnut, hazelnut, sweet chestnut, beechmast, pine nuts, hips, haws and sycamore seeds. Water must be constantly available. Chipmunks kept outdoors will need extra food in autumn for them to hide.
Chipmunks can be kept indoors or outdoors. In winter, chipmunks kept outdoors will hibernate (and will need extra bedding and food to survive hibernation). As mentioned before, a chipmunk needs a large cage to keep it amused. The wire mesh must have holes smaller than 1 inch square, as chipmunks are able to squeeze themselves through unfeasibly tiny spaces ! Do not use chicken wire, as chipmunks can gnaw their way through this. The floor must be solid, and if possible covered up to a depth of 12 inches with shredded paper, straw, hay, dry leaves, untreated wood shavings or dry compost (sawdust makes some chipmunks sneeze). This is to allow the chipmunk to make a network of burrows, as it would in it's natural habitat. Chipmunks also require further enrichments to their environment to give them a secure feeling: Branches, pipes, tubes, shelves, extra nestboxes, hollow logs and rocks. Avoid poisonous woods such as Yew, Laburnum, Rhododendron and Elder. Oak, Apple (and most other fruit trees), Hawthorn (with the thorns removed), Beech and Ash are safe. I use nestboxes intended for Cockatiels for my chipmunks, as they are of a good size for a female to nurse her babies in. Chipmunks also like a piece of rough cloth, such as an old piece of towel, to play with, and rub their fur against to keep it clean.
Too many chipmunks in too small an area will result in aggression between the animals. Chipmunks are solitary creatures in the wild, and aggression occurs suddenly between induviduals. Aggression over food is particularly rife in Autumn, as the Chipmunks' instinct tells it to gather and hide as much food as possible for the forthcoming winter. If nescessary, some chipmunks need to be caged seperately to avoid this, as they can cause serious injury or even kill each other if left to 'fight it out themselves'. Female chipmunks can have increased aggression while they are pregnant, especially toward male chipmunks. However, at other times chipmunks who would usually fight will act as though they have always been the best of friends. This can lull owners into a false sense of security that the animals have sorted out their differences, but this is definitely not the case as antagonistic behaviour can resume at any time. If certain chipmunks have had a history of aggression, it is best to supervise them if they are to be allowed to play together. Some aggressive chipmunks will try to fight through wire (the consequences of this can be horrific - one of my chipmunks, Clovis, had to have a leg amputated as a result of fighting through wire), so in some situations a double layer of wire between cages will be needed.
| Right: Boggy's cage This is a well-constructed chipmunk cage, built for one single chipmunk to live in. It has two levels which are detatchable, and linked via a hole which the chipmunk uses to pass from the upper level to the lower level. The chipmunk has branches to play on and gnaw at, and bed-boxes to hide in. NB: The 'smarties' container which can be seen in front of the door of the cage, at the bottom left of the picture, is filled with chipmunk food, NOT sweets which chipmunks are not allowed. |
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Indoor Chipmunks will appreciate being allowed out of the cage regularly. However, before the animal can be let out, the following checks need to be carried out for safety reasons:
Lock any household cats out of the house. Make SURE that they cannot regain access to the house through an open window or catflap.
Check around the walls and floor of the room for holes, even tiny ones. These are common in old houses, and in any house where a gas fire has been fitted. Also check for holes around any area where a pipe or cable passes though the floor or wall. If you do find holes, block them up. (Block holes associated with gas fires with wire netting to allow the nescessary ventilation).
All windows and doors in the room in which you intend to set the chipmunk free within, must be tightly closed.
All windows and doors in the house must be tightly closed also. This is a safety precaution in case the chipmunk manages to wriggle under the door of the room it is running free in - this is quite a common occurrence.
Chimneys must be blocked temporarily while the chipmunk is free.
Make sure all lavatory/toilet seats in the house are down. If a loose chipmunk manages to fall into the toilet and is not noticed, it will be unable to escape and will drown.
If you have house plants, it would be a very good idea to remove them from the room before you let the chipmunk out. This is because the loose chipmunk will find the plants extremely quickly, and gleefully set about destroying them by digging up the soil, eating the roots and young shoots, biting off the leaves and flowers and gnawing through every thick stem!
It is also a good idea to secure ornaments and valuable items to the surfaces they are standing on. Chipmunks like to stand on ornaments and nudge them with their noses as if checking their stability. I have stuck my ornaments to their shelves with sticky tack (blu-tack), but plasticine or glazier's putty would probably work just as well. This stops the chipmunks knocking things over.
BE VIGILANT !
Chipmunks are intelligent and crafty, and are adept at sneaking through doors while humans are passing through.
Watch for Chipmunks running accross the floor as you walk across the room. Because they move so quickly and erratically, it can be very easy to tread on one accidentally, even if you are trying to avoid it.
Look before you sit down - I once heard of a Chipmunk being sat on and killed as it slept under a chair cushion.
Keep an eye on electric cables. A Chipmunk will not chew these unless they happen to be right in it's way. Watch the preferred routes your chipmunk likes to take, and move cables out of it's way should it start sniffing at them. A Chipmunk will rarely chew far enough through a cable to endanger it's life, but it might chew far enough to stop the appliance working!
If the animal manages to escape, then the chances of recapturing it depend if it is 'wild', and where it may have escaped to. A chipmunk which is lost within the skeleton of the house (eg: has escaped through a hole in the wall and is now scampering under the floorboards and in the roof) will usually return through the same hole it escaped through. Because they are such curious creatures, it is probably just exploring. Some of the chipmunk's favourite food placed in the animal's open cage will act as an incentive for return. Keep access routes open until the chipmunk returns, then quickly block the hole, or the chipmunk will go straight back through it again!. If the animal has found it's way outside the house, then chances of recapturing it are extremely slim. The animal will probably end up as prey for a cat, hawk, or fox, or it would be killed by squirrels, rats stoats, weasels or badgers.
Males will live for 4 to 5 years in captivity; females can live for up to 9 years. The oldest recorded age for a female chipmunk is 12 years, unrecorded at 16 years !
Chipmunks are naturally brown and stripey (the 'wild' colouring of any animal is called 'agouti'), like Maxim (shown on 'Meet the Chipmunks' page). Breeding in captivity has produced a white variety like Star , Boggy and Clovis (also shown on 'Meet the Chipmunks' page). The white variety is not actually Albino (pigmentless, with pink eyes and white skin), because the eyes are ruby-coloured and the skin carries slight pigmentation. The main coat is white with a creamy tinge, and the stripes are beige and white instead of dark brown and off-white.
I have noticed that the agouti variety seems more intelligent than the white, and appears to carry out tasks in a more structured, pre-considered way. White chipmunks are definitely more easily distracted and skittish. For example, a white chipmunk is more likely to knock ornaments over as it races along shelves - a brown chipmunk actually takes more notice of the it's environment and is more careful. The white chipmunks' erratic nature is probably the result of past inbreeding to obtain colour with no regard for the effects on personality. Due to this weakening of genetics, white chipmunks are unfortunately more susceptible to disease and stress.
Chipmunks will drink from cups and glasses if they get the chance. The 'munk will balance on the rim of the container with it's hind feet, and reach down into the glass until it can reach to lap up the drink. If necessary, the 'munk will place it's hands flat against the inside of the glass to provide extra grip. If the 'munk is drinking from a pint glass which is nearly empty, it will grip the rim of the glass with it's hind toes and rotate it's hind feet. This enables it to hang further down into the glass to reach the liquid. Balance is a highly-developed skill in these creatures; I have never seen a chipmunk make a mistake and fall into the container while drinking.When withdrawing from the container, the 'munk moves carefully, so as not to knock it over, balances on the rim with it's hind feet, and carefully steps away. The most likely time a 'munk will knock a container over is when it uses it as a base to leap from; for example, this will happen if a chipmunk is startled while drinking..
Max and Boggy both like to drink tea. Both chipmunks have also learned to test the temperature of the tea before drinking it. Trial and error seems to be a basic chipmunk learning system. Both 'munks have had slightly scalded fingers and noses from trying to drink hot tea, so now they put their hands on the rim of the cup to test the temperature of the tea before drinking.
When a chipmunk has filled it's pouches with food, it will run to a suitable 'hoard place'. Suitable hoarding places include:
Shoes
Coat pockets
The chipmunk's own bed
Concealed Chipmunk sleeping points about the room
A few inches under the edges of rugs
First the 'munk will nose around the area, as if checking the proposed hoard place. For example, if the 'munk is hoarding under a rug it will nose the edge of the carpet up, and push it's head and shoulders under. (Max will push further under the carpet). It will then empty it's pouches by 'wiping' at it's face with it's front paws, keeping it's nose pointed forward. After depositing a small pile of food, the 'munk will withdraw from the carpet and pat the area down with it's front paws. Boggy tends to pat with her paws much more than necessary, spending 3 times the amount of time patting than depositing.
If a particular stash place is disturbed / removed repeatedly the 'munk will stop using it. Once a good, safe hoard site has been found it will be used again and again. For example; A box on top of a bookcase was found to contain about 4 lbs of assorted nuts, seeds and pices of biscuit. Max and Boggy will use the same hoard places. When Star was around, he and Max would scent mark their hoards by urinating on them, and then the hoards would be totally separate, as a chipmunk will ignore food which has been marked by a different 'munk.
