What is the best breeding set up? Runs or Colony?

[Takuraktty]

First off I am not breeding, but I plan to in the future and want some opinions on the best set up. Do you use colonies with numerous females and a male in a large set up or runs with collars on the female and a male who can go through the different areas?

 

[seachin]

Not answering this as I have just gotten into breeding, but want to put out there that one can also have a mated pair in a breeding cage, no collars. I am sure the more experienced will chime in.

 

[RDZCRanch]

It's all up to you and the individual chinchillas. I use runs and colonies. A lot of my males do not like to breed in colony cages...why I have no idea, but they won't breed in colony cages. The majority of my males are in runs and do very well. A lot of people do not like the idea of the collars on the females. If you do runs...check the collars on the females often as the female can gain weight and outgrow the collar, essentially making an embedded collar that is painful. I've had to move two of my girls out of runs because they outgrew the two pronged collars and my three pronged collars are not put together yet.

You can breed in pairs, colonies or runs. It's all personal preference. So there isn't really a "best" set up. Space wise, colonies let you breed on a larger scale without using as much space.

 

[rabit_115]

I do all my breeding in runs or in single pair cages. I've had females escape from their collars before and try to "visit" some of the other girls and the results have not been pretty, so I don't really trust colonies.

I also echo RDZC on checking collars often if you go that way. Embedded collars can cause some pretty bad injury. I had to switch to the extra large collars from Ryerson's to help avoid this. Also the extra larges don't allow my girls to "corkscrew" into the run. I know it sounds weird, but I've seen it in action.


For a small number of chins single pair cages can be a good way to start and the cost of caging will be less.

 

[ABBY W.]

I would say it depends on how you want to breed. Runs allow you to utilize one male with multiple females with less risk of injury. Colonies do the same except there is more of a chance of fighting among the group since they all have access to one another. You can also do monogamous pairs. I would say for a beginner this would be the best way to start. Breeding can be tricky even with monogamous pairs. The more chins you put together in a group the trickier it can get. I usually do pairs and trios, mostly trios at this point, but only with bonded females and an introduced male.

 

[starleomach]

I have here,
9 colonies
6 trios
4 pair
1 run
It really depends on the individual animal and how you like it being set up. I find pros and cons with any set up