All About Chinchilla Breeding

"This is Lauren from Expert Village and we are going to talk a little bit about chinchilla breeding. Breeding chinchillas is always best left to the people that are dedicated to doing this, the breeders. They are usually ready, willing, and prepared for whatever might come. There is nothing like having a baby that gets stuck during the birthing process. Or when you have to start hand feeding every two hours or so, losing sleep and getting up at 4 a.m. Then there's always the chance that a mother will reject her babies and end up killing them in the night. It's not a very pleasant thing to go through, so there are all kinds of considerations to think about before stepping into this. Chinchillas come into heat every 28 to 35 days. A chinchilla should definitely not be bred until they are at least a year of age, typically more like two. They're weaned before eight to ten weeks of age. The gestation period is typically 109 to 120 days. The mother, when she starts to get ready to give birth, needs to be moved into a smaller cage that's baby safe. It means that there are no wires on the bottom of the cage, it has a solid bottom, and the cage spacing bars are pretty close together so that the babies can't squeeze out. You want to remove all of the ledges from the cage so that she can't get up away from the babies and then they wouldn't be able to nurse. You want to keep it pretty quiet when she gets ready to give birth. A healthy baby will weigh somewhere between usually 35 to 60 grams. Stay with us in the next segment and we are going to talk about some health concerns when it comes to chinchillas."