Dead Chinchilla Kit...

[angziz]

SO this is my first post here and I hope you can help.
Sorry that this is quite the story, but I appreciate you taking the time to read it.

Last year around the holidays, I decided to get Shadow; he was small and super shy, but eventually he warmed up to me, running to the edge of his cage whenever I walked in. I was glad to have him.
After a year, I took on two jobs and school, so I felt bad that I wasn't giving him the attention he deserved, and I set to find him a mate. After trying three different chinchillas, I finally found a girl that got along with him right away and named her Mysti. She never liked to be picked up (Shadow doesn't either), but I could still whisk her up every once in a while and play with her.
They would always cuddle and I would always joke around with people about how she was pregnant and such. Mysti was getting fat and I just thought she was hogging the food. I looked it up on many sites but they all said different things. I never saw her tummy move or anything out of the ordinary, just that she was getting bigger.
I was wrong.
They have a huge three story cage in the corner of my room that I check AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, AT LEAST twice a day. Today, I came home from work and noticed a little grey furball at the bottom of the cage with Mysti standing over it. I was so excited that she had a kit, only after looking longer that I noticed it wasn't moving. I looked around the cage, noticing shadow was on the top story and the rest of the cage was covered in splats of blood and small tuffs of fur. I quickly scooped the dead kit out of the cage and had to leave for work, worried about both Mysti and Shadow while I was gone.
Everything is fine (I think) when I got home, besides that Mysti will not let me pick her up and is hiding in the back corner of the cage, Shadow is fine just with his fur all screwed up, seeming unsure why Mysti is unhappy.

LONG STORY SHORT, I want to know a few things:
1) How can I check Mysti for wounds if she won't let me pick her up?
2) If Mysti isn't hurt and it was just her kit's blood, is there any way to clean her off that OBVIOUSLY doesn't involve water?
3) I do want them to be okay with one another as well as try for another baby...Should I separate them in different cages for a while, or just leave them be?
4) Should I be worried about anything else?

PLEASE, any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to get rid of either of them and just want things back how they were.... Thank you for reading!

 

[Dreamlite]

Ok a few areas concern me. If you don't have time for 1 chin why did you get a second? Many chins are happy alone and I have seen several that will kill to be alone. Why a female? Chins can live in same sex pairs. How old is your female? If bred to young can cause many health problems for her. How much does she weigh? She may not be large enough to pass a live kit. Do you have 'time' to hand feed a kit every 2 hours if she can't care for it? Breeding chins should be based on more than a lonely male. Do you have her separated? She shouldn't be living with the male till you are sure she has passed all the kits and is eaiting well. Does either chinchilla have a pedigree? There are many genetic issues that can be passed on such as malo which is a horrible way to die and there is no cure.

 

[ticklechin]

If you don't have time for one, why make more? Breeding should be taken WAY more serious that is what is portrayed in this thread.

 

[Vyxxin]

LONG STORY SHORT, I want to know a few things:
1) How can I check Mysti for wounds if she won't let me pick her up? ...ummm...you pick her up? sorry, has to be done

2) If Mysti isn't hurt and it was just her kit's blood, is there any way to clean her off that OBVIOUSLY doesn't involve water? baby wipes but I'd wait personally

3) I do want them to be okay with one another as well as try for another baby...Should I separate them in different cages for a while, or just leave them be? you know that crazy hair look Shadow has right now? yeah, it's probably from her attacking him all day...the dead kit could be as well...when mothers litter they come back into heat triggering the male to try and reproduce again...kits can easily get stomped to death in the mating/struggle to mate

4) Should I be worried about anything else? other than the fact that you don't/didn't have time for one chinchilla let alone babies and the possibility of having to handfeed every 2-4hrs round the clock for weeks? Well, there's also the fact that w/o knowing your chinchilla's genetic history you could be passing on genetic conditions that will cause slow painful deaths to the offspring...there's also the fact that you put a male and female together without apparently thinking they may seriously become pregnant?!? What are they, just friends? Finally, the part where even though you suspect she may be pregnant you don't do research on proper housing of a pregnant female chinchilla and leave her in an overly large cage with the male increasing your odds of having stillborn kits due to internal injury.

ETA- chinchillas live longer than most dogs or cats, in a LOT of the country that IS becoming an issue...contact any well established chinchilla rescue...see how many chinchillas they have. Oh, and who in the heck leaves a female that has one dead kit with her if they aren't sure she's done littering? She could've had more kits that escaped the cage and have now died of dehydration. Chinchillas don't only have one kit all the time you know? Not even most of the time. If you don't have time to make sure your animal is well...reconsider breeding. Finally, if you're set on breeding you will...we all know that. The cage you are using is not only unsafe for pregnant females/unborn kits it is also not kit-safe as they can escape in their first few hours due to the fact that they can walk and the fact that the bar spacing is massive.

 

[AZChins]

I don't know what to say without sounding like I am being overly critical or rubbing it in. You should have done so much more research before you put a male and a female together. Why did you want to have baby chinchillas in the first place? I don't understand because I consider my animals to be so much more important than this. You should feel fortunate that you only lost the kit and not the mother.

Definitely feel her belly and make sure that she is done littering and you probably want to separate her from the male.

I'm very sorry to say this (ask anyone, I try to stay as positive as possible), you should have gotten a hint and not tried THREE females with this male for breeding. I really hope that you reconsider and stop trying to produce kits. It shouldn't be done on a whim and you have to know what you are doing. When I started breeding I had actual ranchers and breeders as my mentors, not a simple web search on the internet.

 

[angziz]

Thank you everyone for the help. Few things I want to clear up.
1) I do have time for them as well as my dad helps me with them too. If it came down to having to hand feed a kit, I would make the time. AND if that didn't work, there is a local animal place that would love to take care of any pets; I talked to them back when I got Mysti and they said to feel free to come in with any questions/concerns. I just figured I wanted to ask people who owned chinchillas and figured that this was a friendly community.

2) The reason I got Shadow a female companion was because
A- that's all i could find and when the other females didn't work, I took them both away from the situation, not wanting them to hate each other
B-i heard that males will struggle with each other for territorial reasons when introduced to the same cage and try to kill each other
C-Mysti was rescued. I got her from someone that had her in a cage with about 8 other chinchilla sisters that would all step on one another and never got any attention. I gave her a dust bath as soon as I got her home and her fur turned a different color, that's how neglected she was. I also saved her sister and she is very happy in her new home too.

3) I don't believe she's having any more kits at the moment. Its been over 24 hours and she's hopping around the shelves again, where as yesterday she just was sitting on the bottom level in the corner staying away from Shadow. They are now snuggly again like they always have been.

4) I had a second smaller cage for Mysti if she was pregnant, but like I said, I wasn't sure if she definitely was, as there were no symptoms. When I would hold her, her belly never felt like it was moving; I heard that you would see her nipples start to break through her fur so kits could find them after birth - never happened; I always only saw them cuddling or cleaning each others faces. I get that I should've been more prepared and I would give anything to go back in time and have separated her from Shadow. I was traumatized, as I'm sure Mysti was, to have to remove a dead kit from the cage.

5) Its not that I *want* them to have babies. They get along great together (always have) and I knew that since I was combining a male and a female -they're both about the same age, she may be a few months older- that there was a strong possibility. I am against getting them fixed as to the possible risks from the anesthesia.

Anything else I will be happy to elaborate on, let me know. I am unexperienced -in SOME ways- in this field (I have taken care of other people's chinchillas and thoroughly read up and researched them before buying or doing anything to them)I want to always make sure my Chins are in a happy, healthy environment. They are well loved and cared for, and I wanted to start this forum as a place for critical advice from "experts".
I appreciate that some of you are concerned with the fact that I am doing a bad job, but please don't tell me things that I already know, like how long chinchillas live and how its becoming an issue. I knew they lived a long time and are different animals than cats and dogs.

Thank you again, and please let me know if I can answer anything else.

 

[Spoof]

It sounds like your male killed the baby. Some males do this and will also aggressively attack the female right after birth, which it also sounds like he did.

Likely you're going get this over and over again, usually the male kills the babies the first time and the second time kills or brutally tears up the females he is in with. No idea why, but if you really care for them as pets I'd separate them.

 

[ticklechin]

So where are you going with this breeding idea? I mean, she can't have kits forever, you have to separate them eventually so she can take a break and what are you going to do with years and years of kits produced? She is a rescue, and she does not deserve to be a breeding machine not to mention who knows what genetic issues she carries to pass on to the kits.

 

[Bovril]

If your females were rescued together, are they bonded? Perhaps you can keep them in a cage together instead.

Please understand that everyone on here just wants your chins to be safe and healthy and to help you learn, and they're simply being direct, not attacking you personally or anything. We just want Mysti and Shadow to be okay!

 

[Dragonflye]

The best thing to do would be to separate them, put Mysti in a smaller baby safe cage, and wait. It is possible that she is pregnant again.

 

[Pookinaround]

Let me start off by saying that if you would like to become a breeder I would be more than happy to help you. That being said...I see the situation with your two current chins as this...often times people project human characteristics onto animals so I can understand why you may feel that he could get lonely if kept by himself but in reality chins can live perfectly normal, happy lives living alone. Once a chin kills it is a game changer...(at least for me it is). Once they taste blood so to speak I never trust them again with another animal. This happened to me with two very beautiful females. One ended up killing the other and while I would love nothing more than to attempt to breed the agressor again I just can't bring myself to risk it. My point is that I worry about your two existing chins possibly turning on one another. It can happen...there have been MANY things that I thought wouldn't happen to me as a breeder that have... I used to think that you hear all of these horror stories maybe to try and scare you away from breeding or maybe that you just hear more of the bad things that happen because people are going to reach out more at those times but I would just hate for you to wake up one day and find another dead chin. If you want a good breeding pair let me know and I will help you find one but again remember one of those chins has already killed once....

 

[Amethyst]

Just wanted to put my two cents in here... When I first got chins when I was a kid almost none of them had cage mates, all of them were perfectly happy about with that. So long as you take the time everyday to interact with them, even if it's just talking to them, they wont be lonely. I also kept the cages near each other, not close enough to get to each other but close enough that they could see, smell, and talk to another chin. They were not lonely. I am a little confused though, you said in your first post that you didn't feel he was getting enough attention, and yet in another post you said that you have of time for them? Which is it? Also in reality it's the females that are the territorial ones not the males, and I know a lot of people actually have better luck bonding 2 males then 2 females. I do have to agree with the others here, once a chin attacks and draws blood you really can't trust it with another chin anymore, especially not with the one it's caged with. Slipped fur and blood are sure signs that there was a fight, you have to separate them or you will end up with a seriously injured or dead chinchilla. You can have the cages near each other they will be fine and not lonely.

 

[Zoaea]

Thank you for sharing your bad experience for others to learn from, it also helps illustrate why breeding safe cages and being prepare ahead of time is important. =)

3) I don't believe she's having any more kits at the moment. Its been over 24 hours and she's hopping around the shelves again, where as yesterday she just was sitting on the bottom level in the corner staying away from Shadow. They are now snuggly again like they always have been.

The reason she said to check for a kit is because labor can stop, a kit can be breech (sideways) or other issues that would not be apparent by just looking. They can retain a dead fetus that will breed an infection leading to death. So a simple belly check just let's you know there is no stuck kit. Its not something that's going to happen a lot but it is worth the five minuets it takes to check the mom. ^_^