How to Raise Chinchillas
Once you are comfortable and confident caring for adult chinchillas, you may decide to breed and raise chinchillas. Raising chinchillas for profit is a rather challenging business; raising chinchillas for sheer enjoyment still takes time, effort, and planning, but is quite rewarding.
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Instructions
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Decide if breeding and raising chinchillas is right for you. Consider why you want to raise chinchillas, how much space you have to breed and raise chinchillas, whether you have enough time and money to adequately care for the pregnant mother and babies and whether you will be keeping the offspring or will be able to find homes for them.
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Prepare a "baby-proof" chinchilla cage. The cage should be large enough for three or more adult chinchillas. Wire mesh needs to be one inch or smaller.
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Introduce the chinchillas you intend to breed. (See "How to Introduce Chinchillas" under Related eHows.)
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Determine if the female is pregnant. (See "Tips" below.) When you suspect she is, remove the male from her cage or place her in her own "maternity" (the "baby-proof") cage. Provide her with plenty of fresh water, a healthy diet and an adequate-sized nesting box. Avoid handling her more than necessary.
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Monitor the health of newborn chinchillas, or "kits," and interactions between the mother and her babies. The mother should clean and dry her kits, and each should start nursing on his own. Kits should be warm and have full bellies. Healthy kits weigh one to three oz. at birth and should continue growing steadily.
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Handle kits regularly, for short intervals, at first, and then for longer periods. This gets them used to humans, and lets you keep an eye on their health.
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Wean kits from their mother around two months. Continue to raise them as you would any chinchilla. Keep an eye on their food and water intake and activity levels. Enjoy watching your chinchillas grow.
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Tips & Warnings
It may be difficult to tell if the female is pregnant until you see a litter of baby chinchillas. Watch for signs such as the mating plug, weight gain, irregular eating habits, female sleeping on her side or female drinking and licking the mineral block much more frequently.
You may need to hand-feed your baby chinchillas if they are not getting enough milk from their mother. Feed them small amounts of supplement from your veterinarian's office, or at their suggestion, via an eye-dropper or syringe every few hours.
Continuous breeding is hard on female chinchillas. Wait at least one to two weeks following the birth of a litter before returning the male to the cage to avoid breeding-back.
Female chinchillas will begin coming into heat at around four months, and males mature at around five months. Keep males and females separate from this period until about eight months, as it is hard on them to breed this young.
