It’s Going to be a Long Weekend.

Well, it’s gone 2 am and I’m still up - not because I particularly want to be, but because I am rotating chinchilla kits every 2 hours and topping them up with formula 3-4 hourly as required. At least I am not having to fully hand rear - yet!

Hand rearing chinchilla kits is time consuming, often frustrating (especially to begin with when the kits are not used to the formula), and physically and emotionally exhausting. In the first 2 weeks kits need to be fed every 1-2hours round the clock - it’s one of those times when Red Bull or strong black coffee comes in really handy. Mind you, that’s not working for me at the moment as I’m off caffeine!

An alternative to using a pippette to feed the formula to the kits is to get them using a bottle. Bottle feeding chinchilla kits means they get to drink when they want and don’t miss out on a feed if you inadvertently sleep through your 2 hourly alarm clock during the night. The process can be successful used with even small kits (as in the case of the teeny 28g kit).

Twin Chinchilla Kits Sharing a bottle.

.~.

Introducing kits to milk formula takes time - as in any form of syringe/pipette feeding, care must be taken so that the chinchilla does not aspirate on the fluid/food and does not develop pneumonia as a result. With tiny kits this basically means putting a tiny drop of milk formula onto their bottom lip and then having an agonising wait while they lick it off. Initially kits will only take 1 or 2 drops of milk and those two drops can take anything up to 1/2 an hour to drink. The milk must be at the right temperature for the kits which means spending time reheating the milk while the kit decides whether it is going to squirm out of your hand, dribble the milk down it’s chin (getting all sticky in the process), fall asleep in your hand (because it’s cozy, feels safe, and warm) or lick the drop off. Once they get the hang of the pipette and start to like the taste of the milk then the process gets a bit easier - they will start to drink more but then one has to be careful not to allow the kit to inhale the milk in its haste to feed.

Having chinchilla kits is wonderful - they are delightful and precocious, full of energy and highly amusing to watch as they ping around like little furry fleas - but when things go wrong it is often frustrating, emotionally draining, and heartbreaking. The chin room is not the same without the little squeaking noises kits make at their mothers/fathers and the gentle “peeping” noises the adult chins make to the kits but anyone who tries to tell you that breeding chinchillas is easy is either high on something or insane! Time to go and rotate the twins and try to “top them up”. Hey-ho, only another 8 weeks until they are weaned!!