The chinchilla that I rescued in the spring had babies on July 10. 3 beautiful little ones
She is grey but they are mostly black so I am assuming that dad was black. It's so cute how they don't match mom at all, LOL! Kits and mom are flourishing - she is energetic and happy, they are bouncing off the cage walls (literally!!!). I noticed last night they are eating more and more "grown-up" food like hay and hay pellets. I haven't seen the babies drink any water yet, but I did move the water bottle down really low so they could reach it (and put in another one for mom so she doesn't have to bend so far!!).
So now I have a few questions now that they are getting to be bigger. How long do I have to keep them in a 1 story cage? I know mom will be ecstatic to get her shelves back and the book I read just said they needed to be in a 1 story so they wouldn't fall, but it didn't say how long.
When will they actually ROLL in the dust bath? This isn't a need to know kind of thing, more of a curiousity. I put the dust bath in twice a week for mom and the babies look at me (and her actually) like we are nuts with this dust stuff.
How old do they have to be before I can give them away? I know, this sounds heartless. But there's no way I can keep and properly take care of 5 chinchillas (mom, 3 babies, and my original chin). I would rather see them go to homes where people will be great owners than stay with me where each one is going to get mediocre attention. I had to rescue mom. She was going to die. I would like to keep 1 to be friends with my original. But 3 of these chins are going to have to go. It's not so bad right now, they are little, mom does most of the care. But I know it's going to get harder as they mature. And I don't want to seperate them too early.
And finally - will it be easier to make friends with my original chinchilla with mom or with one of the babies? I've kept them all seperate from my original since I didn't want to stress out mom when she was pregnant or when the babies were small. She came to my home in such rough shape to start with I figured she didn't need the added stress. So my Quin doesn't "know" any of them. I hear them chittering at each other occasionally at night, but mostly they ignore each other. Of course, their cages are on the opposite sides of the room