Healthy Weights?

[MikaelaW]

I recently got an electronic scale from Wal-Mart to start weighing my chinchilla. I've looked around the site and internet and I couldn't find any threads concerning healthy weights for chins. What I'm asking is whether or not there is some like, chart that tells the average healthy weight for a chinchilla based on their age.

I weighed my little girl for the first time last week, she is 3 months and a week old and she weighed in at 303g. Is this okay? Is that too much? I've noticed that she has definitely grown a lot in the past month, but I assumed that she was just finally growing into herself. She has some out of the cage time but it's typically me handling her since she's so young and I worry about her exhausting herself too much. So if she's too heavy I can make sure she gets more exercise. I'm just not sure what weight I should be hoping she's around.

If anyone would share their weights possibly? Or just give me a better idea I would really appreciate it.

Thank you!

 

[Andrea]

That is a fine weight. Chins come in all shapes and sizes. I have three adult chins and they weigh 500g, 600g and 650-700g. I've seen some chins in the 1,300g range and they were/are healthy so don't worry . As long as you are not feeding your chin junk and you are giving access to fresh hay, quality pellets and water all should be ok...you just have a growing baby on your hands!

 

[MikaelaW]

Thank you, that helps a lot!! And she has not been given any treats yet, so I guess she is just a growing girl, haha.

 

[6Dusters]

Her weight sounds healthy for her age. As stated they come in all sizes. As long as she's eating and drinking I wouldn't worry about her weight. I only had one chin that I had to watch for overexertion. Sometimes during play his ears would turn very pink and he would run back into his house and lay on his side. So I had to limit his time out and offer a cold pack or cold stone from the fridge. So watch your chins ears getting to pink or red during playtime in the heat of summer. ( this is when Jack's ears showed the pink ears ) Even with the air on, a chin can show you they are too warm with those ears. Simple to cool them down. And its a good tip for a new chin owner to know.

Here are some weights out of my herd. Some are pets and some are in breeding and some are pedigree stock not in breeding at the moment. Only one set of girls ( pets ) has a wheel.

The girls: 588, 623, 637, 644, 652, 719, 725, 811, 823. Ages range from under a year to 7. I don't know how old Ava my resuce is. So I'll guess 7. She is the 637 grams.

Boys: 993, 885, 648. One male in breeding and one not in breeding. And the last weight is my pet quality boy who I think is 5 years. And he weights 648 grams.