male chinchilla puberty?

My chinchilla Gus is roughly 10 months old and humping everything in sight. I've read that this stage lasts between 9-14 months old. I was already planning on adding a female and breeding them, is now the perfect time to do it?

Before you breed there are a couple of things. Does your male have a pedigree? What are your breeding goals? Do you have spare cages as you will need a few? Do you have money for emergency vet visits? Are you prepared to hand raise kits every 2 hours for 8 weeks? Are you prepared for your chins to fight and possibly kill each other?
Breeding isn't all cute and kits. There is a lot of time, money, space and emotion that go into doing it right.

Well I wasnt trying to make it my main job, just for a little extra money on the side I suppose. I've been doing a lot of research about it because I never like to go into anything blindly, but I still havent made any desicions, I'm keeping the worst case scenarios in mind. But from your response you've definitely got me thinking about other things I hadnt considered yet, thank you!

I'd be really careful with placing an overly hormonal male into breeding, especially into pair breeding without a run. It takes someone with a lot of chinchilla and breeding experience to do that without creating the possibility that there will be fighting. Some males never quite grow out of the stage of mounting things. It isn't always necessarily sexual, it can be aggression or dominance or even a sign of boredom as well as a sign of puberty, sexual maturity or hormonal changes.

As far as breeding goes, don't do it unless you are prepared for all the things mentioned by Dreamlite above. It is very involved and it can be expensive and heartbreaking. I could go on and on, I've seen a lot of bad things happen with mothers, babies and fights between males and females....

caitlinlovesgus said:

Well I wasnt trying to make it my main job, just for a little extra money on the side I suppose.

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Ask any of the breeders here- most of them lose money through breeding, they definitely don't make it. Breeding just for the money is definitely not a good reason to go in to it. If I were you I would enjoy Gus as a pet and eventually he will grow out of his hormonal teenage phase. Getting him a chin shaped "cuddle buddy" may help.

My girls first litter (first chinchilla I bred too) ended with a 1300$ bill and I was lucky that she and one kit lived. Had to hand raise the kit, and the mother is sterile now. Breeding for money on the side is asking to be broke, it's more like a serious hobby that you are willing to use money to support it with.

Also, throwing two chins together wouldn't make a very high quality offspring, and even 2 first place show chins paired together incorrectly would result in scraggly offspring. Even pet owners want a chinchilla that looks good. So if you really want to breed go some shows or find a bigger breeder in your area that shows chins and they can teach you about seeing some of the qualities. It's a never ending learning process!

A chin-shaped cuddle buddy is an excellent idea!

All I can say about breeding for money is- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHHHAAAA!!! Even if you have THE BEST chins it is impossible to profit and make a little extra on the side. FOR REAL!! After I pay for feed, shavings, and cleaning supplies...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Sorry, I have to laugh...I have a few hundred chins....ask anyone with 100 to 1000 chins how much they profit in this day and age with how much everything costs....)

You should see what my income is at tax time because it's totally laughable for how much effort I put into everything around here. Get a part-time job at a gas station or flipping burgers because that is pure profit compared to the all-consuming, emotional-mess that breeding chins happens to be.

(I had people over today to see the chins and had to start crying about three dozen times because of the emotional craziness that breeding/rescuing chins has brought into my life....they probably think I am insane!!!)

Just don't do it. I am a small hobby breeder that also shows my animals and I can tell you there is NO money to be made out of this.

Bad pregnancies can happen. C sections. Mothers with no milk and you had better be ready to hand feed for 8 weeks or so. Know your infant supplement.

Mothers need a break between pregnancies for health reasons. Some males will not leave females alone when they are pregnant. Do you know how to give that female a "safe zone" in a pair breeding cage? Mom's and kits require a cage with small hole wire's as kits will fall right out of an inch square wire cage set up.
Females can also get pregnant right after delivery. If you do not separate her, the male will chase her to the ends of the earth and smash kits with the chasing if you don't separate or offer a safe zone for kits. Also ask any breeder and they will tell you mom's also harm kits from time to time. Or kill them.

Then you will have to have several cages to grow kits out away from mom. And dad's don't always take to kits. I had a couple whom I separated when she delivered. I pair breed. I needed help with warming and thought the father would help me out. I let him sniff the kit and all was well. I put the kit in with him and he was good for about 12 long seconds and he proceeded to try to dominance smash him. I had the door open and was ready for just that problem should it happen. So dad was no help and I ended up needing to use a warming pad.

Kits fight too!!! Are you going to be there and have to do rotations in case they decide to fight the living daylights out of each other? They have no problems blinding a sibling or ripping a nose open or tearing feet apart by day two because they want the same nipple all the time. Or....mom has no milk and they won't share a dry nipple. ( my case in the first TWO WEEKS!!) My latest litter of two could not stay with mom at the same time because one kit would have loved to have killed his sibling. Did I mention I have cried at times and have been sleepless for 6 weeks as well?

Oh! And my favorite. I live in the burbs of the capital city of Virginia. Do you think I can find ONE OF THE THREE exotic vets in the office when I have an emergency? Not often. So my mentors are my strongest link and thank goodness they are there when I need them.

Just skip it. Enjoy your chin. Enjoy your freedom.
And should you decide to breed in the future. Take the time to acquire all the information you can and place it in a binder like I did. Then talk to breeders and add to it. And proceed with caution.

On last note: It's really tough to find someone to care for your animals when you are away from home. Be it a short trip or a week or two week vacation.

Thank you for the information 6Dusters. I decided not to breed. I don't want to put that kind of stress on myself especially if Im losing money more than I'm making.... I want to enjoy my chins and treat them like family. I feel like a lot of people lose that, and make it solely about just making babies. And by what yall are telling me, you dont make hardly enough money to support yourself completely off breeding, so why do people get so serious about it?

I breed and definitely don't make money, it costs me way more to feed the chins and give them what they need, than I'd ever make. Heck, even if all the babies were 1st place or higher, still wouldn't sell for enough money to balance it out. Or even if they were all sold at 8 weeks, still wouldn't balance out.

I breed and show because I like the competition. I like seeing how my chins do on the show table as compared to other breeders. And I'm trying to improve because I want to do even better... but there's definitely a cost. I just picked up 3 chins this weekend, a male and two females. One was $275, the others $250 each. Not horrible for nice quality breeding animals from top breeders, but even if I sold every kit for $150 I'd have to sell 5 just to cover the cost of the parents. And really... I end up hanging onto some of those to hang onto for show, and in the pet world, the older the chin, the less you can get for it. Can get maybe $100 for a year old chin, probably way more for a baby, but if I'm growing em out and showing em, not selling many babies. And that's not covering what it costs to feed the animals, give them hanging toys to chew on, etc.

I think that's why a lot of people sell supplies. I know for me, between the rescue and the breeding chins, I was just digging a deeper and deeper hole for years. Finally decided it'd be a good idea to sell supplies, toys, etc, and that keeps the rescue and breeding running on their own money, but without it, forget it.

Oh and one more thing. Just got in a chin at the rescue that's 4 years old, humps everything in sight. So, he may not grow out of it. He has a nice stuffed toy that is his, ah, girlfriend. He enjoys her just as he would a female, without any babies.

Thank you for the input greychins! wow, it takes real dedication!! I admire you all but wouldn't get into it myself. So adding another chinchilla during his puberty phase isn't a bad idea? Cause I really want to treat him AND me this christmas and get another male. Just wasn't sure if I should wait or not.

I honestly would wait. Since he is in that phase, he will probably want to hump the heck out of the newcomer (more than a normal introduction) and the newcomer may not appreciate it, leading to a fight. Not to mention the high hormone level alone could lead to more aggression. I've found when I've introduced young chins, when they hit their "puberty" phase is the time when they begin fighting and I've had to separate.

You could get another male and keep him separate for awhile. And keep in mind that they may not ever get along, no matter what. So you may always have two separate chins.

Very smart of you to skip the breeding. Caitlin deserves a prize as one of the smartest forum persons of the day. One that not only read the information, but decided to apply it. ( and who will have more money in her pocket ) Hee Hee

Well done!!

:bravo:

I thought I wanted to breed my male and female before I found this site!! After reading everything I decided I couldn't put my beautiful female at risk because I wanted to have a newborn chin to watch grow up. Now I have a male and female I love that I have to keep separate to avoid an oops. Love them both but 2 chins worth of poop is enough. I also work full time and don't care for sleepless nights anymore. Breeding definitely needs to be WELL thought out.