How can I safely transport a chinchilla on a 15 hour car ride?

Question

Long story short, I have a chinchilla that I have to transport with me on a 16 hour car ride. And because things are never that simple, I have my two cats with me as well.

I'm probably going to break it up into one 5 hour ride, and one 10 hour drive. But other than that, I usually only stop once or twice to refill on gas (which only takes a couple minutes).

I know chinchillas are pretty sensitive to stress, so I want to make this a easy on it as I can. What do I do to transport a chinchilla over a 15 hour car ride?

Answer 1

It turned out that I was more worried than I should have been. While she didn't like the bumpier roads, she wasn't too upset at spending a day in the car.

What I ended up doing was I put her in a small cat-carrier with an old pillow in the bottom, and I put a blanket over the top of it to try and cut out any outside stimulation. I had her water attached to the door of the carrier with a bit of water (not much in case it fell and spilled).

The cats didn't bother her like I thought they would. I put boxes on and around the carrier so that they wouldn't jump on it when they were free in the car. But the blanket on it's own seemed to be enough to keep them from noticing that there was something inside. I think they were more focused on all the movement outside the car than anything that could be happening inside.