Breeding Age

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wolfy2449

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 21, 2015
Messages
65
Location
Indiana
I'm curious about up to what age chinchillas can healthily breed. I keep seeing that females can breed as early as 7 months (I've seen 7-9 depending on the site), but I've never seen up to what age. I'm not planning on breeding chins, but of course when dealing with such beautiful animals it is a future possibily.
 
First thing it's if your chin is breeding quality and has a pedigree. If you don't know our gave those then breeding is not something in your chins future. That being said a chin can be in breeding until they are any age but the older the chin the more likely to have birthing complications. Older females won't maintain body weight as well or handle birthing as easily as a younger female
 
Thank you Dreamlite. My chin is pedigreed and is from a reputable breeder. I haven't looked into breeding very much yet, I just couldn't find anything about age besides what age they are sexually mature at.
 
Keep in mind that sexually mature does not necessarily mean they are ready to breed. Most breeders wait until the female is at least 1 year old and over 600 grams in weight. If you put a female into breeding that has not reached a good size, she may have trouble delivering her litter.

I track weight weekly with my chins. If a female takes linger than 6 months to return to her normal body weight, I take her out of breeding, regardless of her age. I also pull any that show a propensity to have trouble littering.
 
Thank you for the advice Ciddlebug. Also no worries about my female's age, she is two years old. As for weight, I don't know, I've only had her for about 2 weeks and can't weigh her yet. If I do decide to breed her, it won't be for a while, probably at least 6 months to a year if not longer.
 
Keep in mind that some females will refuse to mate if you wait too long. If you wish to breed but need to wait, I would purchase a younger female when you are ready.
 
I'm curious about up to what age chinchillas can healthily breed. I keep seeing that females can breed as early as 7 months (I've seen 7-9 depending on the site), but I've never seen up to what age. I'm not planning on breeding chins, but of course when dealing with such beautiful animals it is a future possibily.

Chinchillas can breed healthily for quite some time. In conversations with ranchers, i've heard of animals breeding up to 20 years.

One nice thing about starting small in breeding is that you'll likely not start with a run. This means that you have a little more wiggle room with how soon to start breeding your female, since your male will be caged directly with her. Often an successful solution to females not breeding in runs is to colony breed or to pair them. Point... You'll be fine whenever you start and you're female will breed for many years.
 
If you have the male and female together 24/7, you have no control over when she starts breeding since he has access 24/7. If you want to control when she is allowed to breed, you need either a run or separate cages, not a colony, pair or trio.
 
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