Chipmunk: Animal behaviour and problems.

General information

Chipmunks are not domesticated animals. Nevertheless, if you have patience, it doesn't take much time to get them tame and friendly. In their quality as true climbing artists, they have a distinctive urge to move which they must absolutely be able to live. Locked up in a small cage, they would waste away in a very short time. During the day, chipmunks want incessantly to leap and jump and climb and run and eat all the time. It is, therefore, very important for them to have a spacious run where they can romp around. The pet owner should tolerate that rests of feed like peanut shells then fall down on the carpet and that there are small droppings and urination puddles. Who cannot live with that, should take the hands off having chipmunks.

Don't keep chipmunks! Chipmunks have an incredible urge to move. They need cages so spacious that almost nobody can spare so much room in the apartment. Moreover, the animals need a daily run in large rooms and are active only during the day. Everbody who goes to work outside of the house is, therefore, not suited to keep chipmunks. Chipmunks are not animals to be stroken by small children either. There are all too many reasons that speak against chipmunk ownership!

Social behaviour

In his countries of origin, the chipmunk lives in loose colonies and is, therefore, not a real tribe or family animal like for instance the rat or the mouse. Within the colony, every adult animal has his definite (feed)territory. This territory is being marked and violently defended against intruders. If it finally comes to fights, the chipmunks can become very wild and aggressive. The weaker animal gets bitten and is chased away. Some of the fights end with the death of the chipmunk. It is, therefore, advisable to always keep just one single chipmunk in a cage in order to avoid such problems which can even be worse if there is only little space to move. Chipmunks are basically only gregarious and sociable in the mating period and as cubs.

Behavioural disturbances

Behaviour disorder and other undesired behaviour are for the most part the result of keeping the animals in ways not appropriate to their species. The animals cannot satisfy their natural need to move. The same is true for grid biting and climbing paw over paw. Another chapter are bitings among animals of the same species. Cantankerous partners have to be separated.

Man-Animal communication

The first step to communicate with the chipmunk is to learn as much as possible about the life of these animals in the open countryside. This will help to soon be able to interpret correctly what body posture, behaviour patterns and vocalization want to say. You will for instance be astonished to see that the animals bend their bushy tail sideways backwards and forwards in a s-shaped wavy way if they feel a little bit uneasy about something. Like strange odours, new people or extraordinary situations. Holding the feed quietly out to the chipmunk inspires confidence and soon the animal will become tame. He will then climb on the hand and later on the person with the familiar smell.

Animals "talk" to their fellow species by body posture, position of the tail, facial expression, vocalization and many more. If the human being has the position of companion and substitute for fellow species, then he must try to make up a little bit for the big deficit. The easiest way to do this is to talk calmly to his pets. Just the way he would talk to other human beings. Animals are extremely capable of learning and understand very quickly what words, the tone of voice and gestures want to say.

Undesirable behaviour

As a result of keeping the chipmunks in ways not appropriate to their species, they might bite our fingers or gnaw at rubber gloves laying around, as well as at wallpaper, carpets, furniture. It needs a lot of patience to get the chipmunk used to us because he is an extremely shy animal. If, however, we are successful with that, he doesn't bite us anymore. When the animals are in the run-out-yard, they have to be supervised. Movement stereotypies? Too small cage. Etc.

Mood barometer

If the animals are kept in ways appropriate to their species, the chipmunks are hardly ever bad tempered. They are extremely full of the joys of life and lively. Of course, there are shy and friendly creatures. There is also a behaviour within the tribe that could be qualified as cantankerous. For instance the biting between the couples, the chasing away of the cubs. But also this behaviour is explicable with the individual life in territories.

Psychology of animals

In order to be able to appraise somehow the needs and the behaviour of the chipmunks that are in pet owners' care, it is important to know, at least superficially, how these animals live in the open countryside. Moreover, one has to check thoroughly which chipmunk species, zoologically seen, is sitting in the cage, because there are differences in the behaviour of the Asian chipmunk and the common chipmunk.The psychological estimation of the animal and his habits is, therefore, at first a question of knowledge. Competent specialists have written books about this. Moreover, the attraction of the feed (also here the way to a man's heart is through his stomach) can also be used for behavioural psychological experiments.