What size cage do two chinchillas need?

VCA Animal Hospitals publishes a minimum of 3ft x 2ft x 5ft for a pair of chinchillas, against 3ft x 2ft x 3ft for one. Read that carefully: the floor does not change. Both figures are 36 x 24 inches, which is 864 square inches, and the pair figure adds two feet of height rather than any floor at all. That is unusual among the figures on this site and it is the right way round for the species, because a chinchilla's natural movement is vertical. The practical problem is that almost nothing on sale clears 60 inches of living height. The MidWest Critter Nation Double is the cage we would buy — 864 square inches per level, two levels, half-inch bars — and its cage section is about 51 inches tall over a rolling stand, so it meets the published floor exactly and falls short of the published height by about nine inches. We have not found a mainstream cage that clears both.

The single-animal version of this figure, and the measuring advice that goes with it, is how big should a chinchilla cage be. This page is about the pair, because a pair is how chinchillas are usually and best kept, and because the pair figure is the one that is almost never quoted — most pages that cite VCA quote the 3ft x 2ft x 3ft figure and stop there.

What the two figures actually are

A figure that scales in height rather than in floor tells you something about how the issuing body thinks the animal uses space. VCA asks for multiple levels on the same page, and chinchillas climb and leap rather than range. So the pair figure is not asking for more room to pass each other on the floor — it is asking for enough vertical structure that two animals can be at different heights, which is how a pair actually divides a cage.

Why the stand is not living space, and why that matters here

This is where published cage dimensions get misleading, and chinchillas are the species it matters most for. The MidWest Critter Nation Double is listed at 36 x 24 x 63 inches, and 63 inches is over the 60 inches VCA publishes for a pair. But that 63 inches includes the rolling stand the cage sits on, and a stand is storage rather than enclosure. The cage section of the single unit is listed at 25.625 inches tall, so two of them stacked is about 51 inches of actual living height — nine inches under the published figure, even though the product's own overall dimension clears it.

The Savic Royal Suite 95 is the same story at a larger size: 159cm, or 62.6 inches, overall, with the cage split across two levels above a base. It has the largest footprint per level we have verified at about 928 square inches, and we assess it in the best chinchilla cages — but it is not sold on Amazon and is on no affiliate programme we are part of, so it appears on this site as a reference entry with its specification source cited and no buy link.

The three cages, against both halves of the figure

The three other specifications on the same VCA page

• No galvanized wire. VCA rules it out because the zinc it contains is toxic if ingested, and chinchillas chew bars. This is a materials filter rather than a size one, and it removes a lot of cheap imported cages. The same question across species is covered in cage materials and safety.
• Part of any wire floor covered with a solid material. A chinchilla's foot is not built for mesh, and this is the same requirement MSPCA states for rats and mice. In practice it means fleece, tile or correx over every wire level.
• 55 to 68F, and below 80F, with humidity under 40 to 50 percent. The specification that decides where in the house the cage goes rather than which cage it is, and the one most likely to be the real constraint in a warm climate. Cage placement is the general version.
• A wheel of 15 inches with solid flooring. Larger than every wheel we assess, the largest of which is 12.8 inches, so we carry no verified shortlist for it and do not pretend otherwise.
• Multiple levels. Stated on the same page, and the reason the pair figure is a height figure at all.

What to do if your cage is nine inches short

The same thing we would say about any shortfall against a published figure: name it, then decide. A Critter Nation Double at 51 inches of living height with two full 864 square inch levels, solid-covered floors and good vertical furniture is a better home for a pair of chinchillas than anything else we have verified on sale, and it is nine inches under VCA's figure. That is a real shortfall and it is not a reason to buy something smaller instead. If you want to close it, the route is a custom build or a stacked three-unit configuration, not a different product off a shelf — and the honest version of this page is that the market does not currently sell a cage that clears 3ft x 2ft x 5ft of living space.

If you are still choosing a species, chinchilla versus guinea pig compares the two on housing cost and lifespan, and the substrate half of a chinchilla setup is in the best chinchilla bedding.