If one of your pairs regularly...

[LCC]

partially chewed the ears off their babies would you continue to breed from them?

First thing I would like to point out is that these are not my chinchillas just in case anyone got that idea.

I currently do not having any breeding chinchillas and am focussing on rescues until I can find suitable chins to breed from, it was during one of these searches that I came across someone selling a little Beige baby girl with half-ears (the tops are chewed/torn off).

The seller puts this down to "sibling rivalry", however...

Going back through this sellers feedback this is the third such baby with chewed up ears from presumably the same pair (she only identifies them as "mum and dad are beige").

Would the chewed ears be enough for you to remove these chinchillas from your breeding program?

I have mentioned this to the breeder but it seemed to have no effect on their practises.

NB: This (presumably) same pair have produced a total of 7 babies in about 2 years, two lots of twins and a set of triplets.

I have one of the babies from a previous litter (one of the "non-chewed" ones), he was surrendered to the rescue, he has quite a blocky body, though is small (under 450grams at about 15 months old, this is not unusual in NZ), and has a very short tail (about half the length of his catemate's), I cannot see any scar tissue on the end of his tail that would indicate that it was chewed off and it does seem to have a natural taper.

Over the last week I noticed his chin was a bit wet, though that cleared up within a day or so but now one of his eyes is a little weepy, I am in the process of getting his teeth checked. Here's hoping there aren't teeth issues too.

 

[AZChins]

If I have a mama that chews on her babies ears or attacks her little ones, I usually take her out of breeding even if she has the best pedigree or is the most spectacular chin that on all accounts she SHOULD be bred.

As for everything else...I wouldn't be breeding rescue animals.

Hopefully your chin is okay and doesn't have any tooth problems.

 

[LCC]

Oops, should probably clarify that, I definitely do not breed from the rescues, are they strictly non-breeding and will alwasy be kept seperate from any breeding chins.

I got into doing rescue work because I purchased some chinchillas that were supposed to be breeding quality but where nowhere near it (the 18month old male only weighed 309grams, and he was supposed to be a female, lol).

I basically class any chin I adopt that is not suitable for breeding as a rescue chin, and anything that gets brought in through the rescue stays a rescue even if it could pass as a breeder.

Anyway, as for that pair, that was my thought too. Any ideas on how to get this person to listen? She tends to sell these babies to people who just plain feel sorry for them.

 

[AZChins]

I don't know...people don't like to listen. Those little babies are being mutilated, it just stands to reason that a breeder wouldn't want that in their bloodlines. It's likely that it will be passed on to the babies. And, why would anyone want to subject little babies to that again and again?

 

[Dreamlite]

People will do what they want. All you can do is point out that there is a reason the mother is chewing the ears off. Difficult births which could lead to a death, or a agressive mother who clearly isn't prperly caring for her kits. Which may acount for the smaller adult size if she didn't nurse them properly. I would just be very aware of what she breeds. If she doesn't care enough to breed good females then thegenetics or health may not matter to her either.

 

[LCC]

Too true, I'll try again to point out the issues to her. If I had the money I would offer to buy her pair off her but unfortunately I don't (anyone who's done rescue knows how that works I'm sure), of course then she would just go buy more chins and keep on breeding New Zealand doesn't have a big enough gene-pool for people to keep breeding bad quality chins.

One day I am going to import my own herd.... <dreamy sigh> thank god dreams are free 'cause my pets ain't! Lol.

 

[Spoof]

Would the chewed ears be enough for you to remove these chinchillas from your breeding program?

Yes, because the weird stuff like that tends to pass onto the offspring and they do it too if bred.

Obviously in this case they are not intended to be bred.

 

[starleomach]

I have had an ocasional ear loss from a fight between litter mates...it happens in big littered sometimes.. if it was a littermate fight or a birthing issu..if a kit is positioned wrong momma pulls on anything she can. But if it were a chronic issue of mom mutalating her kits than I would absolutely pull her

 

[Mt. Zion Chins]

I have a case of the kits (or 1 or them) chewing the mother's ear to ribbons. I wean them as soon as possible. The kits have been sold as pets. I will not breed from the mother again - I don't like the results of the kits anyway. She has good pedigree lines but doesn't produce well.

 

[ChinchillasByDesign]

I have a low tolerance for this. If a mother is deliberately mutilating her offspring she does to need to be a mother. With that said, we did have a 1st time mom give birth earlier this year. One kit died and the other one was born with a gash around it's ear from birth. The mother was so clean she wouldn't leave that gash alone and it gradually got bigger and bigger. Until we went down one day to find the baby dead. I didn't completely fault her because it really just appeared she wanted to just "clean" this kit too much. So I marked her as a high watch. She littered again a few weeks ago and I checked that cage very often, took the kit out and examined her at least 2 times a day. And she has not harmed a hair on that kits body, great mom in every since of the word. I will again be watching her next litter closely for the same thing, but I am assuming that my first thoughts were right.