Babies with eaten off tails

[tsuziko]

This morning my chin gave a birth to 3 kits. 2 survived. It is her 1st pregnancy.
The death kit had half it's tail eaten by the mom + few fingers on the leg. 2nd one also has half tail, the 3rd is missing 1/3 of the tail. You can see this on the photos...
Is this common? Any advice?

 

[mrminccino]

Sorry, your photos are not viewable.

 

[Minnow]

Not sure about in chinchillas but I do know that in some animals, when a baby/mate dies the mother/mate eats it to prevent predators from finding them. Perhaps it may stem from that...I'm sorry for the loss.

 

[Godofgods]

sometimes the momma can have issues getting them out which results in them pulling/biting them out. Some times that causes some damage.
Also what minnow said is true for chins as well.

 

[Mt. Zion Chins]

it is not uncommon for first time Mom's to over groom their babies as they come out. If you are lucky it is only the tails that they lose - sometimes it is toes,or feet or part of (or all) of the ears. And yes sometimes they eat the dead babies. This is all part of the horrors of breeding

 

[Snowflake311]

YUP what Godofgods and Mt. zion said. I rescued a breeding herd our aunt left us when she passed away. Many of my forsters and the ones I kept were missing ears, toes, missing feet, and one had no tail at all. I first thought all of it was from fights but then I learned about the mother over grooming babies and If they had a hard birth the mom will pull on the foot or tail to get the breech baby out. If the kit was just born I would have rubbed it hard with a blanket to try and get it to come back. We did that with pups when I worked at the vets and it works many times. A hard birth can kill the baby or the mother and baby. You are lucky only one baby died and not mom and baby. 2 out of 3 is good for a chin.

Sounds like you and your chin are still learning the ways. Congrats on your first batch. I thought about breeding but I am going to stick to rescue.


Here are my babies. seemed like the mosaic had the bad ears out of my rescue herd. These males came to me with these ears. It gives them more character not like they need any more they are the BEST! .
20171018_220338 by Sarah Ireland, on Flickr