Griselda’s triplets are three of days old now and the harmony did not last long. I arrived home on Friday afternoon (yesterday) to find the little female kit asleep on her own on the heat box and the two boys, one on either side of Gris, suckling contentedly. I very gently woke the female and placed her near her mother who groomed her and cleaned her all over - so it was not a rejection problem. When a female ignores a kit it is often a sign that the kit has some form of weakness or disability which may not be apparent to us - the kit, once rejected, does not normally survive without intervention and even then, if there is an underlying condition it may well slip away despite our best efforts - some kits are just not meant to survive (that is natures’ way).

I took the biggest male kit out for a little while and watched the other two, while he slept in my cupped hand. After half and hour I popped him back in and he immediately started causing havoc - it was clear he was the dominant male and wanted his mother all to himself. The other two were more than happy to suckle from their mother with no squabbling; one on each side of a sleepy Griselda.

So I began rotating the kits 2 hourly and topping them all up 4 times a day when they were not in with their mother. I did try putting Thug (poor kit, I have a horrible feeling his nickname might stick!) in with the twins’ mother but, despite him smelling of her kits, she was not having any of it. She is more than happy to accept her kits but she would not have anything to do with Thug at all.

Sleep deprivation here I come!

As I left for work this morning I popped in to the chin room to change a couple of dust baths over and check on all the chins. I noticed that Griselda was soaking down her front - her waters had broken!
I watched her for a little while but had to leave for work - she was only in the early stages of labour and her contractions were widely spaced so despite my wanting to stay and watch her give birth, I had to go and earn money to keep His Furriness Lord Montague in the manner to which he is accustomed. She must have known I was impatient and was expecting her to produce last week when I got the weeks mixed up - maybe she gave me an early present to stop me constantly checking on her and asking her when she was going to have her kits.

I have fidgeted all day at work and I came home to find a tired and somewhat dishevelled looking Gris who was sitting gingerly in her cage. She shifted when I called her name and from out under her body scrambled 3 little chinchilla kits. All of the kits are a decent size for triplets (2x 48g and 1x 56g) which explains why Gris is sitting a bit gingerly!

In complete contrast to the twins born a few weeks ago under such difficult circumstances, these triplets are already settled with their mother and have established who gets which milky bar position. There has been no bickering or squabbling so far and it is lovely to see them contentedly attached to their mother. She, in turn, is being an excellent mother and is quietly attending to each kit. She seems very settled with her new brood which is great since this is her first litter.

Here they are:

Chinchillas can be so ungrateful!

Thistle and Teazel have been happily guzzling milk formula for 4 weeks or so now - I have been using generic evaporated milk in their formula which they have taken with no problem but I decided to add Carnation to my grocery shopping list last weekend - a bit of a treat I thought. What-a-mistake-a-to-make-a. For the first time in several weeks I have returned from work to find some milk remaining in the mouse bottles - clearly they don’t like the Carnation so its back to buying the cheap, generic stuff then.

Honestly, you buy these chinnies the best and they turn their little furry noses up at it! They do make me laugh - I can spend a fortune on toys for them and they get more excited about a cardboard toilet roll or an old-fashioned dolly peg!

You’ve got to love them.

The twins are doing very well now - they are piling on the weight and are not looking quite so spindly as they were a week or so ago. Chinchilla kits are so funny when they are first born - they have huge heads, a whippy tail, and long legs. They kind of “grow into” their heads over a period of weeks.
They are little hooligans and now run to the back of the cage to hide when it is time for me to catch them and swap them over. Then they wriggle like crazy - honestly, you’d think they would be grateful for all the effort we humans put in to raising kits when things don’t go smoothly! But oh no, it’s “let me GO!!” *wriggle, wriggle, squirm, squirm* and then they jump all over their poor mothers once they are in with them.
I’ll see if they will sit still long enough for me to take some updated photos during the week - I have loads of photos of spaces where chins were, tails and bottoms, and blurry grey streaks!

One of my females is due - I’ve been impatient all week long and I was convinced she was due on Thursday. Seems there is a wormhole in time and space between the rest of the outside world and my chin room because in there I seem to be a week ahead of the rest of the planet!! She’s not actually due until Friday. Oops!! So that’s two weeks of impatient thumb twiddling before she is due. LOL
Bless her, her sides were rippling like a stormy sea on Thursday so the kits are obviously trying to boot their way out already. She is currently lying on her heat mat looking very fed up. When I did the feed run this evening she just opened one eye and I could almost hear her tutting as she closed it again and went back to sleep.