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[Esleyoga]

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

[jbcstratton]

Congrats on the babies!  Mom could have an ebony gene as well.  In my experience the babies will roll in the dust when they are ready, mom will show them what to do and it sometimes take up to 6-8 weeks in some cases.  Babies should be weaned between 6-8 weeks and then should be monitor for a week or so to make sure they are eating and drinking on their own.  Is your original chin a male? If so, if you put mom or a female with him you are asking for more babies. Otherwise you can try to introduce the mom to your original chin or try a same sex baby, but beware if your original is a male when the mom comes into heat again there could be a fight between males if you put a male baby in with him. If your original is a male you may just have to keep two seperate cages. Or you could keep a male kit and find homes for mom and the other babies.  As far as the multiple levels after 4-5 weeks I think multiple levels are fine, there may be other opinions.  You could start out with a leaping ledge not far from the ground and see how they do.  Your biggest concern would be the kits getting hurt falling from too high.  Picture would be great as well, we always like to look at babies.

[Esleyoga]

Quin is female (my original) and Boss Hogg (the new mom) was supposed to become her BFF.  But when we realized she was pregnant we didn't want to stress her anymore by putting her in with a new chinchilla.  I haven't figured out yet what the babies are - but we are for sure only keeping one if it's female.  These babies were an "oops" on the part of the person who had Boss Hogg before, and for certain not something I feel needs to be repeated.  It was stressfull enough for all of us the first time, LOL!

I think I have some pictures of when the babies were born (that day or the next day) but for sure I can get some tonight - they are so cute and fuzzy! And they will climb on top of the house and jump down just fine, so they might be ok with mom's original cage.  I know she misses her jumping ledges! I think I need to get them a bigger house though, I'm worried that the babies might get squished when they all go in there.  They fit fine now, but the babies are growing by leaps all the time.  Next time I go to the petstore for hay (probably over the weekend) I'll be looking into a larger house.

Any other advice on the babies would be appreciated even if I didn't ask - I know Boss Hogg is taking great care of them so I don't worry too much about that end of it.


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I found the pictures of their birthday (literal, LOL!) but it keeps telling me the file size is too large for me to post Anyone have any ideas on how to fix that?