Chinchilla Community Forums

Breeders => Breeding 101 => Topic started by: AnnieHank on March 24, 2011, 03:56:45 PM

Title: Dirty kits
Post by: AnnieHank on March 24, 2011, 03:56:45 PM
I have 2 kits, about 3 and a half weeks old. They look greasy as hell. Their other behaviours are normal; they're busy and curious and feeding well and putting on weight. They just haven't figured out the bath at all. They look dreadful and I'm worried they'll get skin irritations if they don't wash. We put them in the bath and tried pouring sand on their back out of desperation and they couldn't even figure out shaking it off. Is this normal? The last lot of kits we had were bathing as normal after 2 weeks at least. They've seen their parent's bathe and haven't taken part themselves yet. Am I worrying unnecessarily as usual?!
Title: Re: Dirty kits
Post by: dianah on March 25, 2011, 12:03:32 PM
i wouldn't worry too much. what's the bath like? is it sort of bread tin shaped? my kits didn't like that to start with - even though they watched mum and were fully capable to get in it, so instead, we put sand on a towel and they did venture on there. it took them a while to start rolling in it. at first they just spent time on it and had a bit of a wiggle.
Title: Re: Dirty kits
Post by: jmdebb on March 25, 2011, 06:48:33 PM
yes this is completely normal.  they will eventually figure it out.
Title: Re: Dirty kits
Post by: ABC Chinchillas on April 03, 2011, 03:24:12 PM
They will eventually figure it out . Looking greasy will not cause any issues and most babies go through the greasy phase before learning to dust
Title: Re: Dirty kits
Post by: Debbie.nl.ca on April 04, 2011, 11:43:37 AM
I just let them explore the bath with the parents, they'll get enough dust from them.
My little one the same age still has not gotten it either, and nothing wrong with giving them a little sprinkle of dust by hand either. ;)
Title: Re: Dirty kits
Post by: Jhenderson27 on April 04, 2011, 02:06:48 PM
I had a special kit that just drug his head through it for the first 3 -4 dust baths, then he got knocked over by his brother in the dust and then he was good.  Sometimes it just takes a hard lesson to learn it : )