Chipmunk's temperament

First of all, chipmunks don't bite if you handle them respectably. Some chipmunks do can try to have its own way by snapping at your fingers, but you have to weed out that kind of behaviour by knocking slightly back at the nose always when the chipmunk try to snap you. Very stressed chipmunk can also vent its stress on human beings by snapping, if it can't vent the stress on other chipmunks. Secondly, chipmunks are so curious pets that they are straight away interested to come on your hand (if they are only hand-tamed), when you reach your hand towards them or if you don't reach your hand they will climb up along your legs at a great speed as you can see from the photo beside.

Chipmunks climb always willingly upwards and on the highest place, which means a head with human beings and also with many alimals. Chipmunks are usually interested in new human being acquaintances and thus it's easy to introduce chipmunks also to visitors - assuming that these visitors want also to come to know chipmunks better. However, you shouldn't let chipmunks run along your faces, because their sharp nails cut easily tiny slashes on the skin surface and afterwards the feeling on the face is not the most comfortable.

Compared to all traditional rodent pets, one striking phenomenon with chipmunks is the thing how radically the condition of a chipmunk will change if it's sleeping or if it's awake. So, if chipmunks are awake, it also will be seen and heard for the bustle is very considerable. On the other hand, when chipmunks go to sleep, the whole cage will become so quiet that one could thought that there lives nobody and the whole cage is all dead. Chipmunks are day time animals and thus they are most lively during the day time.

When you take a chipmunk on your hand, you may be surprised for the lightness of it (only 70-120 grams and baby chipmunks naturally even less) and for the thing that they really are capable of climbing up and down along the human body without falling down. However, they do can fall down, but the reason for that is usually the thing that an object at which the chipmunk has grabbed has also fallen or the chipmunk has estimated distances incorrectly or the chipmunk has tryed to jump on a slippery vertical wall (for example some kind of wardrobe door) when it hasn't got the hold of the wall. For example, my chipmunks has fallen down many times from hat shelf when a mitten, a hat or a glove has fallen down and a chipmunk has just kept hold of it tightly.

Chipmunks are curious pets and thus they are always interested in all new and exciting things. When they notice an exciting object in the front they usually stiffen in one place to estimate the new acquaintance and they may drum the floor with their back feet and lift up their tail to a height while the tail is wriggling like it would be enchanted by a snake-charmer (look the photo on the right side). The object that seems to be very exciting to the chipmunk's mind is very seldom any peculiar thing to my mind. For example, the very exiting thing could be a moving skirt hem or a metal and shiny tape measure.

Chipmunks utter also different kind of sounds very much. However, it depends on their personality how talkative they are. A normal chipmunk talk, which they use for example when they move free around my rooms, is periodical and relatively muffled and sounds a little bit like the talk of normal forest squirrel climbing a tree "tsip - tsip - tsip". On the other hand, when chipmunks take a fright of something they start to cheep their shouts of warning with very strong and ear-splitting voice and that sounds just like a fire-alarm. Namely one day I awaked for ear-splitting cheeping and I went to see why my chipmunks were frightened, but when I came next to the chipmunk cage I was just surprised because all my chipmunks were sleeping and not until then I realized that it was only my real fire-alarm which informed me that the battery was nearly at an end. Sometimes chipmunks' talk can also sounds like there were budgerigars in the house; "dwuid - dwuid - dwuid".