My brother and i each purchased a chinchilla 8 months ago, and were told they were both female. Until very recently, we believed that. But, one day i saw my brother's chin cleaning its PENIS (sucking it basically). Now that immediately set me off into worrying if my chin, that is indeed a girl, was pregnant. I read a whole lot of stuff about it, and i examined her, and she doesnt seem to have any of the signs of being pregnant. But also to prevent it i was told to separate them into different cages. I don't know if i could do that because they've been together for literally every second of their lives and im afraid if i do separate them, their entire personality and everything will change . I know that "it's a necessary precaution", but still. I also don't want to have them get spayed or neutered/castrated because its a very dangerous operation in both cases and its not worth losing them=(. What should i do?
You don't have much of any other choice besides:
1. Separating them
2. Spaying and/or neutering one of them
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com 3. Leaving them together and allowing the female to get repeatedly impregnated, thus compromising her health and leaving you the inconvenience of having to find caring homes for a bunch of baby chinchillas.
So the question you have to ask yourself now is, which one is the lesser of all evils? Yes, if you separate the chins, their personalities could change, but would you rather have the female (yours) getting pregnant and ill from pregnancy complications ? Spaying and neutering isn't nearly so dangerous if you go to a veterinarian that specializes in animals like chinchillas and has done the procedure before. But I'm not sure how much that would cost. You have to think about whats best for THEM in the long run, especially concerning their health.
Please look here to see if you do have the opposite sex chinchilla's
http://www.the-white-pages- of-chinchilla ... it looks easy to tell
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com hope this helped you work out the sex before doing anything rash
I just found this on a website. I will list the site in the sources area.
"A male and female will breed even if they are related. Mother to son, Father to daughter, sister to brother. Unlike some animals, you can not inbred chinchillas. And remember a male can become sexually mature as early as 3-4 months. A female can get pregnant as early as 4 months, but her body will not be large enough to deliver the baby and complications will arise. Never house a female in a cage with a male when she is between the ages of 3 -7 months. She will not be large enough to safely get pregnant until she is 7-8 months old. (Over a year old for Violets and Ebonies who mature slower) "
Also ... the story of one chinchilla ...
"Stumpy came into us as part of a group of 14 chins that had been kept together in one cage. The chinchillas included males, females and kits, some the result of interbreeding. They were all in a bad way, small and underweight which was mainly due to them being fed an incorrect diet of rabbit food.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
The males were separated from the females and kits as we did not want any more breeding.
We were told that Stumpy had lost part of his tail, but were not expecting it to be as bad as it was. Every time another chinchilla went near him, he cried out because of the pain. Unfortunately, the previous owners had not sort veterinary treatment and the bone was visible. Stumpy also had an infection in his tail which could have travelled up into his spin which would have eventually killed him. Stumpy was taken to our vets the very next day and given painkillers and Baytril, and the remaining part of his tail was amputated two days later.
Stumpy went on to make a full recovery and turned into quite a character, he was well known for crying for attention every time he saw one of us .. He went on to live in a new home, sharing a cage with some females (after being castrated) and being completely spoilt.
Sadly, Stumpy was diagnosed with malocclusion this year and was put to sleep. "
