****************LONG POST WARNING*****************
I've learned that there are two types of new breeders. The first, like myself, are those who cautiously and carefully plan everything out to the letter and research as much as they possibly can with the hopes of learning from the experience to see where it takes them. Sadly, I've come to realize that the majority of people start breeding for reasons completely foreign to me... to make money, because they can, because mommy and daddy said it was okay or because it'd be so cool to have these uber-cute little chinchilla kits to love and squeeze. Ultimately, the latter group finds themselves consumed with the mindset of "OMG I MUST HAVE THEM!" This post is primarily for all of you OMGers.
My adventure began with two chinchillas, Boji and Maia. Both were purchased from private, local breeders. I got lucky, as neither had any health issues in their lines. Boji had the misfortune of having his tail eaten at birth by his mom. She died shortly thereafter and he had to be handfed, so the breeder lovingly cared for him as her own for quite a while before I adopted him.
I had Boji for two years before it became clear that he needed a friend. I considered a male, but I'm an experience junkie, so I started to research breeding just to see if it was something that I'd be interested in. In my initial round of research, I learned about the basic complications - mom could die, breach birth, stillborn kits, rejection, handfeeding, handfeeding and more handfeeding. The more I read, the more I decided that I definitely needed the experience, even if it was just once. My friend, who had 10 breeding pairs before she had kids, had never had any issues. So I decided I'd go with a female, and along came Maia. In retrospect, I think that friend of mine just got lucky.
Maia was the opposite of Boji in temperment. He was friendly, inquisitive and loved his scritches! She wanted me to leave her alone. Everything was on HER terms - HER way or no way. So, I gave her a lot of space and began working with her slowly. I put their cages next to each other to allow them the time to chatter. By the time I moved them in together, they had months to play on neutral ground. Maia was pregnant within 24 hours of the move in date and I was lucky enough to find the mating plug the next night to prove it.
I live in Pennsylvania, and stupid me didn't think far enough ahead to realize how blisteringly hot the summers get. It felt right to move them in together when I did, so I went solely on instinct. The mating calls made it clear that they were ready, summer or not. I live alone in a decent sized one bedroom apartment, but I knew immediately that my central air conditioning unit wasn't going to cut it for a large, pregnant female, so I went out and spent $350 on a portable AC. (My landlord doesn't allow window units.)
Maia's estimated due date was August 28, 2010. By August 1st, I was in nesting mode right along with her. I should mention that I'm ridiculously empathic, so the closer to delivery she got, the more I slept. My social life went from thriving to non-existant in anticipation of the birth. After gathering all the precautionary supplies I could think of, I joined this forum. It was barely a week before she delivered and it's a good thing I joined when I did. One year of intensive research didn't come anywhere close to preparing me for what I was in for.
In the back of my mind, I had this nagging feeling that I was going to have to handfeed, which was my motivation behind joining. I was panicking, as I couldn't find any consistency among websites of the best formula to use. I'm a logical person by nature, and quite a few other sites recommended KMR, including my vet, but it didn't sit right with me. I guess now would be a good time to mention that there's still an unopened container of it sitting on top of my fridge.
On Sunday, August 29th, I woke up at 8am to new little tiny squeaks. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely and totally beside myself. The cage was right next to my bed and I dove to the floor in my excitment, scaring everyone in the process. When I first looked in, I saw this little tank of a furball, who I later named Buddha. He was hopping around the cage trying out his new wobbly legs and was even cuter than I'd imagined. Maia was in her nesting box cleaning off the other male, Ares.
After watching them in awe for about an hour, Maia went into labor again and out popped Nixi. She was noticibly smaller than the other two, but I just figured it was because she was soaking wet. I stayed quiet, switched my phone to vibrate and began furiously texting my friends while Maia ate the placenta. It was nothing short of nauseating. I waiting about 5 minutes for Maia to clean Nixi off as she had with Ares. No such luck.
I knew three was a large first litter and the words "step in to help mom out" echoed in my head as Nixi started shivering and squeaking in protest of her predicament. I scooped her up in a piece of purple fleece, warmed her up and dried her off. Her eyes didn't open immediately, but when they did, her ears perked up a bit as she looked dead at me. She wiped her little nose with her hand and proceeded to preen her whiskers, squeaking happily. My heart melted.
Once Nixi was closer to dry, I put her back in the cage, wanting to make sure she could start nursing with her brothers. She wobbled over to them, got nuzzled and cleaned a bit more by mom, but then bolted back over to me when she heard me giggle.
Argh!
I knew exactly what direction this was heading, but I left the room to grab the scale and get their weights. Buddha weighed in at 50 grams, while Ares and Nixi were both 48. The neverending checklist in my head was happy so I left the room, allowing them the time to bond and hopefully nurse.
When I returned two hours later, Buddha and Ares were both latched on, but Nixi was darting around the cage exploring everything. I giggled at her speed and her whole body lit up at the sound of my voice again. Her energy was electric. She bolted over to me immediately and I scooped her up and cuddled with her for a few minutes before taking her weight again... 46 grams. Not good, but I knew they dropped weight the first day so I left them alone once more, hoping for the best.
I continued to check on them intermittently throughout the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes it looked like all three were nursing, but if there was one out and about, it was always Nixi. At one point, she was rooting around near Buddha, trying to steal his nipple. Buddha stopped to yell at her before latching back on, making his point crystal clear. That nipple was DEFINITELY his!
She moved on to Ares only to get yelled at and attacked. It was heartbreaking to watch, but I stayed quiet and watched her root around every area of Maia but where her other nipples were. Red flags went up and I called out of work. Thank god I have an understanding boss.
Ultimately, she crawled underneath Maia, going for a nipple on the opposite side. I could see her trying to stimulate milk production with her little hands, so I figured she was okay and gave them another hour. Next time I checked, Nixi was buried under Maia for warmth, not nursing at all. I took her weight and Nixi was down to 44. Buddha was at 48 and Ares was at 47, but I wanted to give them some more time to figure it out before I started rotating the kits. The tapes in my head assured me that it was just day one but my heart knew better.
I kept a close eye on everyone, weighing them about every four hours and driving myself crazy in the process. Nixi continued to drop weight. By the next morning, she was 41 grams and Ares was 44, so I started handfeeding Nixi and rotating everyone so that only two kits were with Maia at once. Nixi took to the handfeeding well, but it wasn't without a strugggle. Even so, her weight continued to drop and by the night of the second day, she weighed 39 grams and was visibly cold. I opted to work from home for the rest of the week.
At that point, I emailed Peggy in a panic. I had to become more stringent with my feeding schedule, making sure that I was feeding her every two hours on the dot around the clock. Goodbye coffee... Hello Red Bull.
At around 4am on the third day, I awoke to Maia running away from Buddha and Ares, checking her one nipple constantly and squeaking up a storm of short, barely audible, upset cries. Saying that she was noticeably agitated would be an understatement. She was beside herself. I pulled Ares out and stuck him with Nixi in the carrier under my down comforter so I could check on Maia. Maia hates to be touched anywhere but on her head and neck, so I had to coerce her into standing up so I could see the problem. What a problem it was! The area surrounding her nipple was bald and her nipple was bright red, bleeding, partially hanging off and potentially infected. It looked like one of the kits chomped a little too hard.
After taking a few moments to calm both myself and Maia, I began to handfeed all three kits. A very long four hours later, the vet's office was open. The vet gave Maia an injection of fluids and a pain killer, in addition to giving me some Metacam to take home with me. The kits all got fluid injections since their weights were so low and the vet warned that I should be prepared to lose them all. Still, I was happy to see Nixi and Ares back up to 47 grams that afternoon. Unfortunately my happiness was was short-lived.
Maia started nursing again within hours as long as I only left two kits in with her at once. More than that, and she'd have a squeaky fit again. I still had hope that Nixi might nurse, so I made sure to give her one on one time with mom every few hours while I continued to handfeed. It was a wasted effort.
After some more research on Metacam and another round of frenzied emails with Peggy, I decided against giving Maia the Metacam since she was nursing steadily again.
The surprises continued when Maia rejected Ares later that night. She ran away from him, pushed him, squeaked at me to help and ultimately urinated on him. If that's not a bright red arrow pointed at the culprit, I don't know what is. So now I had two to handfeed and neither one was a quick eater. I cleaned Ares off as best I could, but he was terribly depressed and just listless. He would only eat 1ml per feeding at best, while Nixi was at 1-1.5ml. Red Bull, as nasty as it is, became my new best friend as I quickly forgot what sleep was.
I realized I was going to be at this for a while, so I went out and bought two smaller cages and all the supplies for each. I put Nixi and Ares in one of the new cages as I searched the internet for a location near me that sold the dry goat's milk supplement. I had a heating pad under the cage and they both loved their little hut that I stuffed with fleece. It kept the heat in fabulously, which increased their appetites, but not their weights. By the evening of that fourth day, both were eating every two hours, but Nixi was at 35 grams and Ares was at 37. I sent more frantic emails to Peggy and she (and the vet) continued to advise me that I should be prepared to lose both of them.
My heart was breaking, but I wasn't about to give up. I hoped that putting Ares with Nixi would lift his spirits a bit, but had no luck. He was just so depressed by the rejection. I spent days talking to him, scratching him, holding him and just smothering him in love. On the 5th day away from mom at 9 days old, he finally started to get a little happier. He hopped around some more, and even perked up when he heard my voice. His energy was a lot better than it had been previously and I began to feel better about the situation.
That evening, his appetite took a rapid decline. He was eating less than half a milliliter per feeding, so I adjusted his feeding schedule to every hour rather than every two hours. When I woke up for the 7am feeding, Nixi was sitting outside of their hut squeaking and Ares was gone.
Nixi still needed a lot of attention and had pretty much decided I was mom from day one, so no matter what I did, she wanted to be with me. If she was alone for too long, she would throw little chinchilla squeaky-fits. She still does, actually. In the days after Ares died, she wanted nothing to do with her cage or the heating pad. Body heat was preferred, so I started sleeping on the couch, in shifts, with her under my shirt. On top of being a ridiculously light sleeper, I'm not one to move in my sleep. Even so, I did realize the risk. The logic behind sleeping on the couch was for the restricted mobility to avoid accidentally crushing her. It worked well and we continued that for the next two weeks.
After Ares died, I focused obsessively on saving Nixi, but my week off from work was almost up. I shouldn't even say that I was off. I did work about six hours each day sporadically from home. It was rough.
I buried Ares and focused on getting Nixi on a "normal" schedule with the hopes of getting more regular sleep myself, even if it was segmented horribly. I should mention that I'm not a parent and have no interest what-so-ever in having kids, but there was something about that little fuzzy face that gave me limitless patience and love, even in the depths of my sleep deprivation. I've never felt anything like it.
By the time I went back to work, I had found the dry goats milk supplement, and Nixi was up to 42 grams. I went into work over the weekend to set-up the second cage behind my desk. (Did I mention that my boss is awesome?) She finally started to gain weight regularly by the end of the second week, but I still woke up in a panic fairly often.
For the next eight weeks, I fed Nixi every two hours around the clock, which is really easy to say but near impossible to do. It wasn't until the last month that I could space the feedings out to every three hours, rather than every two. I would stay at work for 10-12 hours every day to make up for the time I spent feeding her. The toll it took on my mentality and emotional stability is indescribable. More often than not, I would phone a friend in a panic at 2am. Sometimes I needed them to research something for me because I couldn't stare at a computer screen any longer. Other times, I just needed to vent long enough for my sanity to return. I continued to sleep on the couch every night so that waking up was easier. Of course, this also meant that I didn't achieve full REM sleep for 3 months. I couldn't drink to take the edge off for fear that I'd miss a feeding. With the exception of the ocassional friend coming over to handfeed for a round or two, my social life was practically non-existent.
Still, normal life went on and Nixi accompanied me to my friend's bridal shower. I'm sure you can imagine the surprise on the faces of the other guests when my little fuzz face popped out of my shirt to say she was hungry. Still, she needed to stay warm and what warmer place is there? The following month was the wedding and she still wasn't ready to be weaned. I purchased an electric coffee mug that plugged into the cigarette outlet of my car, which I used to heat up the formula during the three hour drive. I was amazed at how well kits travel when they're properly cushioned.
By the time all was said and done, I handfed her for 12 weeks, weaning her when she was 300 grams. She and Buddha are now 6 months old and both are happy, healthy and thriving. It's amazing to watch their little personalities develop, and I certainly got the experience I was looking for.
Even so, you seriously couldn't pay me to go through that again. It was an emotional roller coaster that put the rest of my life on hold. Nothing was "normal". Nothing was predictable. There was another surprise around every turn and I think I must've ended up charging at least $1,000 from start to finish. Despite my research, I was still completely and totally unprepared for the toll that everything took on my body, my lifestyle and my sanity.
For those of you who have made breeding a dominant part of your life, please know that I hold you in the highest regard. I'm sure at this point, a majority of you think about it like it's nothing... another day in the life. It's a life I could never live, so I'm definitely a bit envious of your ability to do so. I never would've made it through one birth without the knowledge and expertise of those on this forum, especially Peggy. For that, my friend, I cannot thank you enough.
For those of you who are still up on the air about breeding, I sincerely hope my experience has helped to provide a bit more perspective - even if it's just to evolve you from the "OMG CUTE" mindset to one that's a bit more grounded in reality.
In summation, the best advice I can give you is:
- Get as educated as possible by reading the posts on this forum.
- Find a GOOD vet with years of experience in chinchilla care.
- Find a knowledgeable breeder who's willing to answer your frenzied emails in a timely manner.
- Be prepared to put your life on hold for up to three months.
- Make sure you have a support system in place to help with anything else that comes up.
Without the combination of all of the above, the chances of their survival and the maintenance of your sanity really are pretty slim, especially if an emergency arises. Make no mistake, EVERYTHING with chinchillas is an emergency until you get some experience under your belt.
Regardless of your decision, I wish you all nothing but the best of luck. Just be sure that above all else, you love those little fuzzy faces with all your heart. They're counting on you.
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