Orphaned Baby Chins - Need some advice?

xxmegan · Jul 16, 2010

In April we bought a chinchilla from Petsmart..not a good choice we came to find out..

On June 9th, our chinchilla had babies! We were very surprised. She had two baby boys. Petsmart claimed they had no idea how she got pregnant. This was our first chin ever, so there's no way she got pregnant here! I told them she had to have gotten pregnant there. They gave no help at all, of course. Everything was fine we were very happy that she had babies and we had new additions.

Yesterday when she woke up we put her into our "chin safe" room. No wires or anything that could hurt her, and she could wreck it to her hearts content lol. I placed her on the floor and she wouldn't move, this is really weird behavior for her. Usually she'll run off and play with toys and run around. She started to try and walk and I saw she was limping. I was really worried about her. We put her back into her cage and checked her out and she seemed okay and we couldn't figure out why she was limping. Nothing had happened all day, she'd been sleeping.

Later that night, I heard a lot of noise from her cage. At first I thought it was the babies running around and playing but it was her. She was shaking violently and the only way I can explain it is a seizure. I picked her up afterwards and she just seemed really out of it.

I held her and tried to comfort her but something just seemed really wrong. She fell asleep on me and I put her back in her cage in her log where she loves to sleep. I woke up this morning to check on her and she had passed away.

I cried my eyes out over this, and so did the kids.

My main concern now, is what to do for her babies. They are exactly 39 days old today. I know they need their mother's milk for at least 8 weeks. They've been eating food and drinking water since the first week of birth but I know they still need nutrients from mommy's milk. Will they be okay without it? What can I do? Is there some type of formula for chinchillas? I've had to do this for abandoned kittens before and I know there's that. But I don't know if they have it for baby chins? Do I make my own? Out of what?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

tunes · Jul 16, 2010

They should be fine at that age, even with losing mom. Usually at 6 weeks they will start eating more pellets, and nursing less, so they should be fine without mom's milk. However, I would provide them at least with a dry formula that they can munch on.

1 part goat's milk POWDER (not liquid)
1 part 1/2 baby rice cereal and 1/2 baby oatmeal cereal
1 part pellets

You'll need to grind up the pellets until they are fine. You can use a food processor, a coffee grinder, or I just use my blender. Measure in however many cups you want to use, then grind them up. After they are ground up fine, dump them into a container you can seal, add the cereal and the powdered milk, mix it up really well, then put some in a shallow dish (ceramic cat crocks, etc., work well). Refresh it as needed throughout the day. If they fill it up with shavings, then dump it and add fresh.

You will want to be sure to get a scale that measures in grams (Wal-Mart or Target has them) to keep track of their weights and make sure they are gaining from this point on.

I'm very sorry you lost your girl.

lauralynne · Jul 16, 2010

What Tunes gave you is the best advice.
I hope the boys keep thriving and that you'll stick around and learn lots to help those sweet babies.

PS - We LOVE pictures!!!

xxmegan · Jul 16, 2010

Thank you Tunes for the awesome advice! This was clearly the best place to come. I googled some...and couldn't find anything good until I stumbled upon this site. Glad I became a member.

Laura here's my two lil boys!

Shadow -

Padfoot -

I am sure I'll be posting a ton on this forum.

Thanks again guys.

AZChins · Jul 17, 2010

They're very sweet!

You'll have to keep us updated with photos as they grow.

Brittany_Lynn · Jul 17, 2010

Have you thought about doing a necropsy on mom and perhaps telling Petco about it? Doubt they'd do much, but if you make enough of a fuss...maybe something good will come out of the chins they sell in the future?