As the sun shines brightly in the lovely blue skies we have to think about our chinnies welfare and what temperatures are good for them, with that in mind our thoughts turn to air conditioners. The temperatures in the chin units shouldn't exceed 20-25 degrees as this can be fatal to a chinchilla and the lower you can get the temperature then the happier the chins will be. Remember that any air conditioners that have containers to catch the water will fill up and switch off till they are emptied. Think about the rating and power of the unit, a smaller unit in a large space will not work as effectively as a bigger unit in the same space. Try to place the unit off of the ground so that the cold air will have further to fall and therefore more of the room will be cooler higher up. Also remember that if you have a power cut that you go and check that your unit is switched back on, or if you are on holiday that you let the person whose looking after the chins know to put it on as this can be easily overlooked.

The style of units that attach to the wall and have a vent to the outside will be better than the ones with the containers as these will run constantly and do not require any emptying.

Don't just go for the first unit you see, take a look around other places to see if you can get a better unit for just a little bit more. Places online such as www.kelkoo.co.uk are a great place to compare prices of air conditioners.

Fans will have little effect on cooling the chinchillas due to their dense fur but are good to circulate the cooler air (when used in conjunction with an air con) around the chin unit.

Other ways to keep chins cool can be to get terracotta tiles and place them in the freezer overnight and then put them in the chin cage as they will keep their coolness for a few hours and the chins will most probably sit on them. Marble is also a good cooler as well you can buy (in America) marble slates from a chin site to be used in the same way as the terracotta tiles. Another way would be to place the ice box coolers above the cage (perhaps wrapped in something so it cant be chewed) or in a container inside the cage so that they too can help towards cooling the chins.