How to clean a cage with babies?

I have two Prevue Hendryx's Critter Cages with a female chin in one, and a male in the other. Every Friday I clean these cages by wiping down the toys, and the bottom wire grate after removing it. Afterwords; I empty the litter pan and wash that as well. During this time, the chinchilla whose cage I am currently cleaning is free roaming. I will pair the chins in the male's cage to begin breeding sometime this Fall (once my female grows large enough). My question is, with my cage situation, how could I best go about cleaning the cage with babies in it? I understand that letting them free roam during this time would be a big mistake for multiple reasons. Would isolation in a travel cage do the trick? Or would that be too traumatic? How about cleaning this cage with a moody pregnant female chin around the 90 day mark in her gestation period? Could I allow her to free roam, as long as she doesn't have heights to fall from?

I appreciate any advice on this matter.

P.S. I have noticed that many people are attacked for when they mention they are getting into breeding. Don't bother with me. I will not acknowledge your condescending comments. I have done extensive research, understand the risks and money costs, and developed what I believe are the right reasons for breeding. I do know that wire bottom cages are bad, but I have supplied many things to cover the uncomfortable, bumblefoot causing wire. The metal ramps and shelves have been substituted with wooden shelves and ledges. And the free roaming is supervised in my chinchilla proofed bedroom.
Thanks! :thumbsup:

If you want to ask questions of experienced breeders, wanting their input, perhaps starting out with such a snarky comment isn't the best idea. I'll try and ignore your condescension and answer your questions, even though I'm pretty sure your reasons for breeding aren't the greatest, as evidenced by already deciding to breed a female who you have no idea of what the quality will be when she matures.

I would never allow a pregnant female to have run time. You are putting the female and the kits at risk by doing that. I don't handle my females. I don't pick them up, move them around, etc. unless I absolutely need to. Some females get nasty as heck when you move them and all it would take is for her to jerk or bite you, for you to drop her, and that could be the end of the kits. If you cannot leave her in her cage, then I would place her in a carrier and let her be until the cage is done.

As far as the kit, again, I would put any potential kits in a kit safe carrier until the cage is done, along with mom, and then put her back in the cage.

FYI I put my mom and two kits in a large airline carrier while cleaning and I just wanted to warn you. Luckly I checked to see where everybody was or else I would have squished Jack as he tried bounding out the hinge side of the door as I was about to shut it. Jack is a dare-devil and as a kit he was always doing something.

Thanks for the advice and forewarnings. And Tunes...really? Take a look around this forum. People's love for chinchillas and the idea of breeding them are both being crippled left and right by the patronizing given by "multi-starred individuals." It is only fair for me to assume I would have to deal with this interrogative style questioning, so I decided to save everyone some typing by adding the P.S. note at the end.

We are talking about living animals here, so I can understand the need of some of the queries found on this forum being asked on a daily basis. As for the rest; it's all a load of judgmental, ego fueling garbage. The mentality that many on this forum have developed when it comes to breeding is that we should be developing a super race of chinchillas. This idea is great, but not necessary. Both chinchillas should not need to be of outstanding quality by any means. Two ordinary chinchillas should be allowed to produce offspring as long as the pair of chins have a color safe combo and clean genetics, are healthy and fond of each other, and have matured to a similar size. Both of my chinchillas either fit these requirements or are well on their way to. Ordinary chinchillas aren't a bad thing. I will love a chinchilla just as much whether it's shoulders are wide or narrow, or if its tail is short or long. As for keeping color mutations running strong as ever; that's up to big time breeders like yourself, not small hobby breeders.

Your assumption that my reasons for breeding are likely bad because I don't know what my female will be like when she matures only proves my point further. You don't know how old she is, or her size, or even what her personality is like. You know virtually nothing about this chinchilla and you still seem to be comfortable enough to criticize its owner on the matter. My female is getting close to six months of age, she is just slightly smaller than my full grown male, and has wonderfully accepted her noisy neighbor, Snickers.

Hopefully, you will now see where I am coming from. I told you that I had educated myself on chinchillas and how to successfully breed them to a comfortable level. You had no right to assume otherwise. I ask that you take into account that many soon-to-be chinchilla breeders have good intentions for chinchillas, just lack some knowledge. As an experienced chinchilla breeder you should be helping them along the way, not cutting them down. For an example: many chinchillas are sold as an impulse and often end up needing to be rescued and rehomed. You could very easily explain how to find the right owner to someone looking to get into chinchilla breeding, rather than immediately attempting to shut them down. I asked for help, and while you did aid me you still attempted to shut me down.

I do hope nothing has been taken too personal.

You missed my point completely. If I came to you and said "I want to know what you know about something, but if you say ANYTHING I don't like, I will completely ignore you", do you think you would give me the time of day? Somehow, I doubt it.

This is a public forum. People are going to say what they are going to say. If you are really as well versed in all things about chin breeding as you say you are, then you could simply ignore what you don't want to listen to. You don't come on and say "I know everything there is to know about chin breeding, I've researched it, but by the way, I don't know everything there is to know about chin breeding, so tell me what you would do; however, I'm not going to listen to ANYBODY who might in any way disagree with my reasons for breeding, no matter how misguided they may be."

That being said, since YOU brought up all the crap about judgmental, blah, blah - How happy does it make you to see tons of mutts being put to sleep in shelters because people don't care about meeting any kind of breeding standard? They don't spay and castrate, and the shelters full of animals are the result of it. Do you see a lot of grand show champion dogs sitting in shelters? I know in my local shelter it's black lab after black lab after black lab mutt mix. If a purebred anything shows up, it's gone in a heartbeat. It's the mutts that are left to rot. Breeding chins without a goal is every bit as irresponsible as throwing two mutts together and letting them rut because they have nice personalities. What makes you think that two show winning animals, at the top of the tables, with the very best genetics behind them, can't have good personalities? Do you think all those chins are vicious killers that lay in wait in their cages for their humans to sleep, plotting their demise? I am so sick of hearing that lame excuse from anybody and everybody who wants to breed.

If you listen to breeders, and not pet owners who just want to voice their opinions because they are passionate about chins as pets, then you would know that most breeders say the same thing - breed if you want to, but get a mentor, attend shows, be prepared to accept the consequences (every 2 hour hand feedings 24/7, sometimes large vet bills, the possibility of having to keep every single offspring, etc.) and do it right. They might question your intent to breed, because so many people come on here who are going to tell us all how it's done, then 10 minutes later sell all their chins because they get overwhelmed, but I would think if you were truly serious about breeding these animals, then you would welcome their questions and concerns so that you are SURE about what you are doing.

By the way, I am a hobbyist, I am not a big breeder. I have probably 50 breeding females. The rest of my chins are separated into same sex pairs, are chins that shouldn't be bred (quite a few of which are owner surrenders because they can't take care of them or were given to me because the local shelters don't know how to take care of them or have space), or are babies or growers. You don't get to judge me if I don't get to judge you.

Being one of those multi-starred individuals that has to clean up the mess of people who breed whatever they wan't, whenever they want and how much they want, and those chins end up being dumped on the rescue because of "OMG fill in the blanks", I am tired of people like this after 10 years of seeing it over and over and OVER again.

The ratio of this type of newbie breeder to newbie rescue is a joke. Where the heck are these chinchillas going to end up? The rescues are FULL, chins are being turned away, the classifieds here have tons of unwanted and unsold chins, why make more PET quality chins? Oh I know why, silly me. Malo chinchillas make GREAT pets, you don't have to provide pellets, hay, a water bottle, chew toys, chew sticks and if there was not that dang thing called vet visits and hand feeding they would be right up there with the pet rock.

What are you planning to do with the babies?

I have to say I find this quite insulting. For as much research you have done then YOU should know the answer to your own question. You have alot of nerve to come on here with all your P. S. crap. You kinda made yourself look really dumb just now.

See, when people come on boasting about the research they've done so they KNOW they're prepared, they just have one more question...we know you haven't done enough research.

What the newbie breeders on here fail to understand time and time again, is that we aren't trying to be big meanies with our "rules" for breeding. Many of us, if not most of us, started out wrong. We ALL regret it and we ALL know now that breeding for quality IS breeding for health and temperament. You cannot separate these qualities. Why would we encourage anyone to go down a path that we ourselves regret? If anything, we want to keep people from repeating our mistakes. Didn't your parents ever tell you stories about their lives in an attempt to keep you from repeating their mistakes? Except, our advice is geared to save chinchilla lives that you would willingly bring into the world with little knowledge of WHY we say what we say.

Chinchillas are very social creatures and have great personalities to begin with, so saying a chin has a great personality really isn't saying you've found the holy grail of chinchillas. We aren't building some perfect super race of chinchillas, we're building quality. I've run into it time and time again, but when people are faced with an older chinchilla of quality from my herd or a rescue baby with thin, barely there fur and a sickly looking body due to bad genetics, they pick the adult. I've seen breeders that breed for "pets" and I've watched them kill their herds with their breeding practices. Any chin would do as long as it looked healthy and they destroyed the health responsible breeders have worked so hard for. Their babies never lived past 8 months old because of weakened immune systems and birth defects. Maybe this is an extreme, but I've seen it happen in four different "just a hobby" herds.

And of course, you insulted many of the breeders of this forum by implying that they are all big breeders. Many of the responsible breeders on here are hobbyists. I've never liked calling chinchilla breeding a "hobby" since a hobby is something you do in your leisure. I LIVE chinchillas every day, especially when I have babies. It's not something I can leave for a few days and come back to and just pick up where I left off.

I get the feeling from newbie breeder posts that you view responsible breeders as hard asses that don't want anyone to start breeding. We've even been accused at one point of trying to monopolize chinchilla breeding. The only thing we ask of newbie breeders is to heed our advice and try to start out breeding the correct way. We aren't asking you to bend over backwords, make a human sacrifice to the forum, or even chop off your own arm. Buying a quality chinchilla isn't even more expensive than buying crap off of CL or at a pet store, so there is no reasonable excuse not to start with quality.

Hmmm. Where to start.
I guess one should address the breeding. Your female should be bigger then your male. Her pelvic region needs to be taken into consideration. Age etc. And you should ask yourself what are your reasons for breeding.

For those who have not witnessed the grievous situation of the mass unchecked breeding practices, this post will put you in a rather uncomfortable start. And we may not change your mind. So lets give advice.

Roaming free is really not a good idea. Your back it turned and your busy cleaning. Most of my cages have pull out pans. And some do not.
The cages that DO NOT offer me a couple choices when cleaning. The animals that want to jump out when the door is open go to the playpen. You can also use an animal travel cage. Add some wire mesh to the door when you have a mom with kits. The wire gauge is big enough to allow a kit to go through at 1x1 inch. And it has already been stated to SLOWLY shut the door.

I do not handle my females when they start to lay down in late pregnancy.
I just had a look at your cage online as I am not familiar with it. I saw the wire bottom. I suggest fleece. If you can't sew up a liner then cut some wood or cardboard and wrap it up and set it in there. Your going to be doing that for a long time with little ones. Kits are up and running soon. And they can climb a wall a few days later. And wire areas where feet are going to be must be covered in fleece with this cage. Kits run fast! Kits climb high! Kits are not smart! Pad the bottom heavy.
My all around best suggestion is to invest in a good baby cage! And no ledges for mom to get away from her kits. If given the opportunity she will move away from them. They need to be close to her the first couple weeks. For nursing and warmth. At the two week age I will put in a ledge a few inches up for her to take small breaks. If a runt is in the litter then the ledge doesn't get put back until later.

I agree that you need to return to the education part of breeding. More to it then just pregnancy. I don't have the time nor space to add more to that aspect.
Just keep in mind there are many great breeders in this forum and you already knew this post was going to leave you wide open to criticism. ( I assume your animals are "pet only") Correct us if we are wrong.

We would much rather have you start at our shows for you to view the results of well thought breeding placements. These shows are tough. As well they should be. ( I'll be the first to admit I did not do well with one pair and pulled them from breeding. Sold the male to a fine breeder working with that mutation and I sold the female out as a pet.) "Pet only" animals are always welcome in the show. Some people just want to see a show out of curiosity. Some come without animals to see what should be bred. Some attend shows and pick up their already purchased animals.

Thats all I have to add.
BTW: I only have two breeding pairs at the moment. So I have to work even harder when breeding.

I must live in a part of the country that is just getting "chinchilla-ized" because when we wanted to get our first chin we had a very hard time finding one w/ in 100 miles of us.....if fact we have only gotten one of ours closer than 150 miles from us. I tried to find one at a rescue and the only resuce w/ in 200 miles of us would not adopt to us because we were too far away from them for a home visit. In fact 2 weeks ago we picked up a new chin for a friend who was in the same situation (I happened to be driving through a larger city where we had gotten one of ours and was able to arrange to pick a girl up for her).
In fact I searched craigs list, ebay and all the typical "offenders" because we wanted to take a chin out of a bad situation (we have NO intention of breading.......after our 2 baby boys I never want to go through that again), I even looked for a breader w/ in drivig distance of us that wanted to retire a female but had no luck.

Another thing to consider with your breeding... Getting a baby safe cage... A Prevue ferret cage is not baby safe. The bar spacing is too big, and the cage itself is too large to safely house kits.

Okay, if you're put off by the way the breeders on the forum handle this repeated situation, let me offer a different perspective.

I have 3 males, pet only. 2 were rescues. 1 I purchased from his breeder b/c he was already friends w/ the rescue I was there to see. They're fed Mazuri and organic hay from a local farm, they live in a tiled FN 142. The most valuable item listed on my renter's insurance is that cage... all so I can keep my pets healthy and safe. These chins (and my cat) are my equivalent to children.

Every morning I wake up dreading drooling, runny eyes, and the other signs that Crash or Nova's teeth are a suddenly a problem. And yet I chose unpedigreed rescue chins knowing that I could spend less than 1/3 their average lifespan with an animal that was already 'thrown away' at least once. I purchased YouBe in part because of that fear of malo; his breeder has his pedigree back multiple generations on both sides. None of his ancestors show signs of genetic malo, and at least one of them is in his teens. IF I lose Crash (the product of a breeding just like the one you seem to be planning) or Nova (from who knows what kind of breeding, but taken from a place of neglect), at least YouBe has genetics on his side in the fight to see his 20th birthday. With him in my herd, I'm far less likely to lose them all to a disease that can, with careful evaluation before breeding, never be a concern.

Crash and Nova... I pray every day that they reach a ripe old age too, but as "muttchillas", I simply don't get to have that peace of mind. I opted to give them the peace of mind of a huge pile of hay and a dish of pellets every day instead of going unloved and alone. That's part of the burden backyard breeding contributes to, and why in spite of the overwhelmed rescues all over the country, people like me still find breeders that go to shows and pair the best possible animals they can find, and cheer when we only pay $100 for an animal that would never win a blue ribbon, but will be an amazing companion for the next decade. We know that animal will be a step ahead of the equally adorable, smart, and clownish chins from backyard bred litters all over the country that die too soon and after unnecessary suffering.

By skipping the judge evaluations and not thoroughly critiquing stock, backyard breeders curse pet owners with the heartbreak of losing a 3 year old chin because his teeth are growing into his skull. (Search the memorial section of the forums; we've had several malo cases mourned in the past year.) We only get 15 years with them when we're lucky. It hurts even more to lose a pet, in spite of doing everything right, simply because his genes predisposed him to a short, uncomfortable life.

When you are encouraged (however rudely you feel you're being treated) to research even more than you already have, it is with the best interests of the animals in mind. Currently, there aren't enough people willing to take on the responsibility of rescue chins to keep up with the number that need safe, knowledgeable homes. If you really want to be an asset to the chin community, rescue. Whether you breed or not, learn how to help the animals thrive, and take in the ones that someone else no longer cares about any more.

"Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them." the Dali Lama

The level of ignorance displayed by these replies just makes me nauseous. The majority of the responses were riddled with insinuations and faulty logic. It almost seemed like you ladies were just trying to "save face". The replies often ignored my points, and instead were filled with ridiculous off topic remarks. RDZCRanch, please excuse the majority of my previous comments. You had a very solid argument, for the most part. And 3CsMommy, your new perspective was a nice change, however I never asked for it.

I would list all of the examples, but there are far too many and it's not worth my time or energy.

That's the joy of a public forum. Nobody cares if you "asked" for their opinion. They get to give it anyway. If you don't want anybody to respond to your posts, then don't post.

No, you didn't. But what you did ask would already be answered by the research and mentoring good chin breeders go through before they start. It's something my own mentor (a rescuer) covered with me before I ever brought a pet chinchilla home, even though we both know I never plan to breed chins (or any other animal).

The fact that you had just one pretty basic question, coupled with the "don't question me" attitude makes people nervous for those chinchillas. I can understand being on the defensive when mentioning breeding here, but perhaps that feeling should have served as a warning to read even more before you opened yourself up to questions you clearly didn't want but knew you'd get.

http://www.chins-n-hedgies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19630&highlight=cage+cleaning+babies

I can't do more than encourage you to go into breeding with eyes open and the best for your animals and their potential future owners in mind, but when I see a red flag like this one, I'm going to say something as nicely as possible. And since I don't detect a tone of superiority or rudeness in my reply (and if you did, I apologize), I can only conclude that you were prepared to be p***ed off before you ever hit submit, regardless of what came out in the replies.

To be honest-you are not worth our time and energy either.

If this person can't even figure out something small like where to put a kit during a cage cleaning, how are they going to figure out the important stuff without help? And with this crappy attitude, they won't get it here and that is sad for the kits they produce.

ticklechin said:

If this person can't even figure out something small like where to put a kit during a cage cleaning, how are they going to figure out the important stuff without help? And with this crappy attitude, they won't get it here and that is sad for the kits they produce.

Click to expand...

Amen. I don't even know where to start with all the crap you have posted and the attitude YOU brought to this thread. Im calling BS on the fact that you have done "extensive research" if your cage isn't even baby safe.

"Both chinchillas should not need to be of outstanding quality by any means. Two ordinary chinchillas should be allowed to produce offspring as long as the pair of chins have a color safe combo and clean genetics, are healthy and fond of each other, and have matured to a similar size."

It's sad that you have such low ambitions for your breeding program. So what kind of quality should they be if not outstanding? Poor? Medium? How would you even know what quality is if you haven't been to a show or learned from a mentor? If you had done your extensive research you would know that "color safe combos" doesn't really mean anything because you can pair white to white and tov to tov - you just get less kits because they dont form NOT because they produce hideous 8 legged 4 eyed chinchillas. And maturing to a similar size makes absolutely no sense - so as long as my male and female are both 400g I should breed them?

I can only conclude that you are in this to sell kits and make money regardless of how they come out because afterall, it's only a pet right? Why give prospective buyers quality when they can have subpar? Yah sign me up.:wacko:

As for keeping color mutations running strong as ever; that's up to big time breeders like yourself, not small hobby breeders.

So you are only planning to breed standards? Ah, so it's only big breeders who should be breeding mutations? Sorry not following your logic here...

As an experienced chinchilla breeder you should be helping them along the way, not cutting them down.

Again, I don't think you have even bothered to read all the great advice that has been given on this forum over the thousands of threads in this section as you are touting. There are hundreds of members on this forum who would attest that they have been given great advice, much of which probably saved animals' lives and built outstanding breeding programs.

"Take a look around this forum. People's love for chinchillas and the idea of breeding them are both being crippled left and right by the patronizing given by "multi-starred individuals."

"The level of ignorance displayed by these replies just makes me nauseous. The majority of the responses were riddled with insinuations and faulty logic. It almost seemed like you ladies were just trying to "save face". The replies often ignored my points, and instead were filled with ridiculous off topic remarks."

So you yourself aren't making any insuations or using faulty logic? All I see are a bunch of brash assumptions on your part, but what do I know being a "multi-starred individual."

"I asked for help, and while you did aid me you still attempted to shut me down."

Actually you asked for help and shut US down. You can't come out here guns blazing, shield up when no one has even responded to you and expect to get a warm welcome.