Chipmunk's background

Chipmunks are quite rare pets (at least in the northern Finland) and easily uninformed human beings do think that oh no somebody has stolen chipmunk mother's little babies from a yard birch tree or that a pet chipmunk is truly something else than a normal squirrel/chipmunk. There have been made a few individual observations of wild living chipmunks also in Finland a few centuries ago (I wonder where they have come from or have they escaped somewhere?), but they are only exceptions, because a chipmunk is not regarded as a Finnish animal species, although the living circumstances for chipmunks shouldn't be at least worse in Finnish nature than in Siberian nature. Chipmunks are not sensitive to cold.

In natural circumstances chipmunks fall usually in their winter rest in the winter time. Also pet chipmunks living warmly indoors may fall in their winter rest in the winter time or at least their awaking time is markedly shorter then than during the other seasons. Of my own chipmunks Muusa was the only chipmunk who took a proper winter rest last winter. Usually I saw only from Muusa's seed dish if she had taken a little walk for fetching some extra food into her nest during the day. However, often it might take a few days that nobody had touched to goodies in the dish. Thus I could know that Muusa hadn't left her nest in the past few days. Kasper and Milla was awake more, but they slept also so much more in the winter time than in other seasons that it had a clear effect also on my cage cleaning intervals.

Chipmunks are long-lived animals. With a good luck they will reach a lifetime of 10 years and maybe even more. However, for some reason male chipmunks lives usually a few years less than females. The oldest chipmunk (from which I have heard) has been over 18 years old and I don't even know if she is still alive, because at least when I heard about her story she was still alive and in comparatively good condition.

I have got a lot of feedback of these pages and someone has asked if a chipmunk could be a suitable pet also for a person who is allergic to other pets. Unfortunately the fact is that in spite of the small size chipmunks (like other little rodents) predispose towards an allergy easier and worse than for example dogs.