Recent content by SteveD

Baby Derby Will there be a baby derby at Nationals? If so, what is the age range?

I understand about Friday night; my question is regarding Saturday night after the show. Since we will have a 9 hour drive home, we will be staying in a hotel Saturday night after the show. I need to know if we can leave the chins in the show hall overnight that night or if I need to find a...

Show Hall Will the show hall be available to leave the animals overnight Saturday night and pick up Sunday morning?

East Tennessee Chinchillas plans to attend; we will bring 16-18 chins and a raffle prize.

Last year we lost a mom of quads when the kits were 10 days old. We farmed one out with a foster mom and hand fed the other three. We found that they liked the canned goats milk better than the fresh. We also mixed a little Dyne with the goats milk. Once they got a little older we hung it on...

Is this a claim show?

I will miss the show because I am at home recovering from a heart attack that I had on March 3rd. My chins will be there though! My daughter and daughter-in-law are showing 11 of my chins for me.

Thanks Becky. We are bringing 8 or 9. First show where we will be showing chins that we bred; very exciting.

Leaving animals at the 4H building Will we be allowed to leave the animals in the building Saturday night and pick them up early Sunday morning (like last year)?

Hey Cassie, We are mostly using breeding runs. When we first started out, I built 12 cages with slide out metal pans that were roughly 20" wide X 24" deep X 24" tall. Later we purchased some 3-hole breeding runs and have continued to add a few more each trip up to Ohio. I have retired 6 of...

We started off kinda fast. We bought two male chinchillas for pets on August 1, 2011. We fell in love with the little guys right away. Not long after that, we bought two females, then two more males and two more females. We were up to about 20 at the time of MCBA Nationals this year. We...

We have found that some times when we place a kit with a surrogate that it takes a day or two before the kit starts to gain. We have also had kits that refused to accept a surrogate mom (even though the new mom seems to accept the kit). We had one set of triplets that we had to bottle feed due...

We have had two litters of quads and three litters of triplets this year. With one of the triplet litters the mom did not have much milk at all. The kits were nearly two weeks old before they gained back to their birth weight. When they were three weeks old the mom became very aggressive with...

We use shredded aspen bedding and ours will nibble on it too. We have a 6 month old that has a wooden house that he has almost devoured.

Sometimes they may look a little greasy from the oil in your skin from handling. If the eyes are watery or if you see any discharge (like puss) take it to a vet to get some antibiotic eye drops.