Introducing My chins

[acmom]

Im not really sure if this is the right category but hopefully someone can help.
I have a a male chin that i adopted a year ago, and then i adopted another one shortly after and it was supposed to be a male but suprise! now SHE is pregnant. I have them both in a six foot cage and they do great together but i recently rescued another male chin from a really bad situation and i have him in another cage. I would like to put the three of them together but when i got them all out in the hallway, the two i already had attacked the other one. will this be different after she has the kit? or should i just try to rehome one of them? and if i separate the male and female, will they become depressed?please help, thanks!

 

[greychins]

The fighting will continue, kits or not. There is no way to house two or more males with one female - the males will fight over the female, possibly to the death. It's not something you'd want to deal with. Since you have two cages, I don't think you'd need to rehome any of them. Ideally you should try to put both males together and put the female in the other cage. When the female delivers and eventually the kits are weaned, do the same - the female kits stay with mom, the males go in the cage with the boys. Trying to keep all the females/males together is just asking for disaster.

If you separate the male and female, they will be fine. In all the time I've done rescue, I've separated many males and females that previous owners just SWORE up and down had to be together... they were fine. They never died from heartbreak or were depressed at all, that I noticed. They'll be fine.

 

[acmom]

introducing chins

Thank-you for your response.the fighting is what I was worried about, I don't want any of them to get hurt and I have the two cages but I can't keep both of them in the house, the one cage is just a small chin cage and I feel bad about keeping one of them in there. I believe I will wait until she has the kit and put the boys together and just rehome mom and baby when they're ready. I didn't really want to have kits, I was surprised to find out that "he" was actually a she.

 

[acmom]

Not to mention, I don't know anything about taking care of kits,it scares me enough that she's already going to have one.and I really don't want to have this happen again. It was a complete surprise.

 

[greychins]

It happens - you'd be amazed how many rescues I get in where I am told it's a boy and it's really a girl, or vice versa. If you've only ever seen maybe one or two chins, or had someone vaguely describe how to tell the difference, it's easy to mess up which is which. At least you will be separating them and making sure it doesn't happen again. Kudos for that.

As for separating them, you will want to separate the males from the females BEFORE there are kits, because there can be a breedback, which is where the mom can get pregnant right after she gives birth... so you want the male away from her before that happens. I would separate sooner rather than later.

Often times, you really don't have to know much about taking care of kits. If mom gets in the milk, then the babies stay with mom until they're around 200 grams or 8-9 weeks and then get separated (the males at least). It's good to have a gram scale to weigh the babies so that you can make sure they're gaining weight and doing well.... helps catch any potential problems quickly before they become major. The only time you'd really need to "do" something to take care of the kits was if something was to happen to mom, or there were too many babies and they couldn't all get milk, or something along those lines... and then you would have to step in and rotate or hand-feed... but hopefully her pregnancy will go smoothly and you won't have to deal with any problems...

Are you sure the female is pregnant? I don't mean to doubt you, but why is it that you think that?

Just in prep for the pregnancy, do you have a baby-safe cage that the babies won't get out of? Wire spacing bigger than 1/2 x 1/2 babies can get out of... I just got in a 1 week old rescue baby that got out a cage with larger bar spacing. The woman had rehomed all her females the day before *face palm*... she never even knew there was a baby until she went to clean up the chin room and there was a baby on the floor....and had no females left.

When the babies do arrive, they are quick and mobile from the start. They are just as quick as the adults, and I think they are actually more difficult to catch, because there is less to grab onto.

 

[acmom]

my three chins are not separated. Thanks for your response, Im not 100% sure that she is pregnant bc i dont know that much about pregnant chins. but ive been reading everything i can.She has gained quite a bit of weight over the last month or so and For the past couple of weeks she hasnt been her usual sweet mannered self, she has been very aggressive and wants left alone. She also has theses bumps on her belly and her belly is very round and hard.So im not sure but i dont have any idea what else it would be. Her mate was acting funny yesterday before i separated them, he kept going to the bottom of the cage and shoving all of the bedding from the middle of the cages to the sides of the cage in big piles and she was staying more towards the bottom of the cage. She hasnt been very active the past several days, all she does is eat drink and sleep and occasionally get in her tunnel. And this morning when i checked on them, she had shoved the opening of her igloo into one corner of her cage and she shoved all of the bedding from the center of the cage to the sides, just like the male did but she went a little more extreme and the igloo only has a small passage to get to it now. What are your thoughts?

 

[acmom]

Correction, I meant to type they are now separated, darn autcorrect,lol.

 

[minrex]

Did you mean that your chins are NOW separated? One letter can make a big difference.

 

[acmom]

Yes I meant now, autocorrect got.me.

 

[Cuddlebug]

It sounds like she probably is pregnant. One of my females behaves just like that when she is pregnant getting close. Can you describe the bumps on her belly? I am thinking its her nipples, but I am not sure.

 

[acmom]

I'm pretty sure that's what they are bc there are two rows from her chest down. But I'm glad its kind of.normal.behavior bc I was a little.worried.

 

[greychins]

I would think, based on what you said (mostly the weight gain and the change in attitude) that she is pregnant.

That does sound like nipples to me as well - those elongate and get bigger towards the end of pregnancy. And most of the weight gain is also in the last two months of the pregnancy, so that is when you would really start to notice the weight gain.

Well, hope everything goes well. If something doesn't, we're all here to help you the best we can.

Oh! and I would look up an exotic vet now, before she actually gives birth, so that if something does go wrong you will not be searching for last minute. If you post your location, maybe someone can suggest one?

 

[acmom]

Thanks for all the help, I appreciate it. I have already been in contact with a local exotic vet and I found that they are really the only one in the area. I contacted them about getting one of my males fixed and they were very helpful. I will update you all on their progress.