Well, Bella’s little fella (must not keep referring to him as “shorty” or it is going to stick!) seems to be doing great considering how wobbly he was when first born. Bella is now in full mothering mode and is very protective of him; open the cage door to take him out to weigh him and she’s there like a short, all grumpy and defensive.

He’s putting on weight slowly but surely and the tell-tale curly tail has appeared. He spends most of his time tucked happily under his mother, back legs waving in the air as he’s upside down.

He’s looking more chin-like too.

Bella's Kit at 2 days old

Leila’s kits, on the other hand, are being complete monsters. They have been climbing the bars and pinging off backwards and are currently still jostling for teat position. Leila is being brilliant, bless her, and is separating the offenders when scuffles break out.

What is not so helpful is that Leila also seems to be grooming off the pen marks we put in the kits’ ears so we could distinguish them. We ut fresh marks on today – what’s the betting they are nowhere to be seen again tomorrow?

Anyway ……….. kit photos as promised. These were all taken by Talie yesterday.

Leila with the male kit

1st standard female, just born

2nd Female Kit Born

Looking for milk

Bella’s kit is a male (checked earlier today) and he seems to be doing pretty well. He is getting to grips with the whole suckling thing and Bella appears to be finally settling down to motherhood. He’s a cutey – very quiet and shy. He’s also very small, weighing 44g yesterday but surprisingly (kits usually lose weight in the first 24 hours or so before the mother’s milk comes in) he had gained 1g today.

Here is the little chap:

"Shorty"

I popped into the chin room this morning to check on “Shorty” (I do hope that name does not stick – like “Thug“) and from the corner of my eye I noticed that Leila had gone into labour. She’s not due until Monday and I was on my way out to Roman & Jane’s Chinchilla Rescue to help out – I made a quick phonecall to Jane to tell her that Leila had changed my plans for me and I would be late. I then started hopping from foot to foot and banged on Talie’s door so she could watch the kits being born.

Leila is another Manor character. She is feisty and can be a real stroppy madam when she wants to be but I love her dearly and she has the ability to always make me smile. One of her favourite hobbies is taking off my glasses. I got her about 4 years ago from a breeder who literally gave her to me because she had a couple of tiny (5 pence piece sized) fur chew marks on her hip and so was of no use to the breeder at all.

I brought her home to The Manor and settled her into a cage which was just about at eye level and spent weeks slowly and carefully interacting with her. This is when I discovered she liked my glasses. It took all of a couple of days for Leila to settle into The Manor and she stopped fur chewing instantly; it was clearly stress/boredom related. With some toys and gentle attention Leila turned into a beautiful chinchilla – both in character and in body.The only time she has ever shown any sign of fur chewing again was when I moved her to a cage she did not like – it was too high for her and she could not “chat” to me quite so readily. She took one small nibble of her fur in exactly the same place as when she originally arrived. Moving her back to an eye level cage stopped the habit again – so now she stays in the same cage level and is perfectly happy.

Leila’s last litter produced two cracking standards (Griselda and Genville) who both won group awards – Griselda won a 3rd (dark standard female group) at the National in April 2006 which I was very chuffed with since these were the first standard chinchillas I had bred. Grenville now lives the life O’Reilly with a friend of mine, shares a cage with a chin that Debbie bred called Moley (big, squishy, cuddly lump of a chin!), and still managed to win 1st, Reserve Best Adult Standard Male and Reserve Best Standard at a show last September (Southern Region) – that’s not bad going for a 3 year old.

Both Grenville and Griselda have inherited Leila’s character – George, their father (and the father of the latest litter) is quiet, a bit aloof but absolutely amazing as a breeding male – he is suave and very gentle with his girlies and never misses a trick. Currently he’s looking a bit porky because he’s got 3 females and he pops up in each cage when you go round with the treats – if you’re not paying attention he’s snaffled 3 treats before you’ve noticed!

Currently it is difficult to tell which of the two chins is pregnant – as this photo demonstrates

George (on the shelf) and Leila a few days ago

Thankfully Leila’s labour was pretty uneventful – she had triplets this time: 2 females and a male. She was pretty tired by the end of it and when she finally expelled the placentas I did not let her eat them. I removed them, gave her a raisin instead, and left her to settle with the kits.

Talie took some excellent photos – will upload them tomorrow. Right now I’m off to watch the kits settle with their mother.

Bella gave birth today. When I went into the chin room at 6:30 there were no signs of any activity but then a chin started manic barking at 7:15ish. Talie went in to see who was making the commotion – yeah, like they are going to admit it. LOL – every chin sat there looking angelic, silently proclaiming their collective innocence. I wandered along to check on Bella again.

There was a little kit, slightly cold and a bit wobbly but beginning to dry off. I gave the kit to Talie to pop into a towel so she could help dry and warm her up and then went to see what else was happening. Bella was soaked and a little bloody and was pushing again. Unfortunately this second kit was breech and Bella had overdone it a bit on the clean up operation. The kit was stillborn – the legs and tail were intact (surprising because chinchillas often damage legs or tail during breech delivery) but she had removed the umbilical cord and had coninued to nibble the kit. I could not determine its sex because the genitalia were missing and some of the intestine as well.

Losing kits is always difficult but sometimes there it just nothing you can do – had I been in the chin room 5 minutes earlier I might have been able to help the kit out and it might have been alive ……….. you can drive yourself crazy with “might have” or “what if”. Some things are just not meant to be and nature can sometimes be a cruel mistress – knowing that does not make it any easier though and each loss is felt. If  each death did not touch me then it would be time to stop keeping chins – everybody who knows me knows that I’m too soft for my own good really! A sucker for a sob story and a push over for a misfit.

I took the poor little kit away from Bella and left her to settle a bit and pass the afterbirths (which she did successfully). Talie had, by this point, dried the first kit off some more but she was still a little cold. I popped her down my pyjama top and waited for the wriggling to start. Sure enough, after 5 minutes or so, the little kit was moving about and was nice and warm.

I popped her (keep saying “her” but need to check properly later) back in with Bella, changed the cage’s bimble pad for a clean one, made sure the heat mat was nice and warm, and left Bella to it.

So far all is quiet ………………. Bella seems to be settling with the little kit and the kit seems to be gaining in co-ordination.

Bella had twins in her last litter but the little charcoal only survived for a few hours and died snuggled on my chest. It seems she is destined only to have 1 kit survive.