In the States, we got a call from Holland. It turned out that Tante Truus had
given birth to two healthy, grey babies. We were quite sorry to miss this event,
but we knew they were in good hands. Tante Truus' babies.
Please note: Most of the pictures are 'clickable'. I initially display a low-res. version of the photo, to reduce page load time, but if you position your mouse cursor over them and click, you will receive a high resolution version.
The first litters (Spring '95)
Ayla's second litter (September '95)
In May '95, we went on a trip to the States. We 'parked' Speedy, Ayla and Tante Truus at Bernice's mother. This gave her a chance to 'test-drive' the chins, because she was thinking of getting a few of her own. Sammy stayed at our place, and was taken care of by one of our friends.
In the States, we got a call from Holland. It turned out that Tante Truus had
given birth to two healthy, grey babies. We were quite sorry to miss this event,
but we knew they were in good hands.
Tante Truus' babies.
And one of them
When we returned to Holland a week later, we rushed home from the airport, to go pick them up ASAP. We dropped our luggage at our place, and were getting ready to jump in the car again, when we found a note from the girl that had been taking care of Sammy: 'take a peek in the cage'. We did, and saw two beautiful, one-day old, light-brown babies ! We never even noticed Sammy was pregnant, but it was quite obvious she was (at least by now).
Sammy's offspring, 2 days old, and a few weeks later
So, if everybody is still counting, our chinchilla population had suddenly doubled in one week.
Sammy, nursing.
One week after Sammy's litter, Ayla gave birth to another grey baby.
This one was the same size at birth as the ones from Tante Truus, who were two weeks old
then. Because they were all in the same cage, we had a hard time telling which baby
belongs to Tante Truus and which one is Ayla's daughter.
Ayla's daughter, 1 hour after birth
So, now we had one father, 3 mothers and 5 babies. We decided to sell or give away all of the babies. They were picked up by their new owners in the beginning of August '95. Since then, it is a lot more quiet in the cages, but we feel we did the right thing. It was just to crowded, having 6 chins in the cages we have.
There is data on ChinNet of the average growth rate of baby chinchillas. Below you will find a graph of the gain in weight we experienced with our chinchilla babies. You will see two curves : one for a litter of two (this is the average of Tante Truus' babies and Sammy's), and one for a litter of one (Ayla's). This is all the experience we have right now. If you have similar data (in whatever form), please contact me.
This is how we got the data in the graph : we weighed them every day,
using our kitchen scale. The display shows 68 grams, so this must have been taken when she
was around two weeks old.
Just another picture
of me and one of the little guys.
On September 25th, Ayla gave birth to two more chin babies : A grey female and a white-silver male. We concluded she had let Speedy mate with her right after birth of her previous daughter, so this time we made sure he was in another cage before she was scheduled to deliver.
Mother and son.
Both babies are healthy and growing
fast now. This is the little guy a few weeks later.
You can also take a peek in our chinchilla room. and see our cages, or jump to our adult chinchilla page.
Bernice Muntz bernice@muntz.net
The Netherlands