This is a long stage & quite the waiting & guessing game. Since the chinchillas don’t give birth for 111 days after mating & becoming pregnant, they deliver kits with open eyes, teeth, complete fur, & the kits will be moving around the cage with in no time at all.

You should feed your mother as well as any other chinchillas Tums before, during & after pregnancy. I generally feed about 2 a week. This will help her develop healthy babies & to keep mom at her best!

This long term pregnancy takes a lot out of her after every birth. It’s also important to wait a few months before breeding again. (Breedbacks are very stressful on the chinchilla & can cause her death, death of the babies, & or other illness.)

You will want to stop playing with the chinchilla as much as possible. (You can feel for the babies just be sure NOT to poke too hard. You could damage one of the fetuses, or hurt the mother.) You can open the door of the cage & play with them, but i recommend letting the mother decide if she wants to come out or not. She simply may not want to & you picking her up can cause harm to her & the young if not done carefully. They also do still require time out of the cage, but again, let her be the judge if shes feeling up to it or not. You may want to allow short run times during her pregnancy to eliminate stress & over activity. When the kits are born you can let mamma out to run, but do not allow kits under the age of 8 weeks to roam free. They are a lot smaller & can get into more as well as not be seen as easily resulting in being stepped on, etc.

Around the 60 day mark, you possibly will notice the nipples beginning to get bigger. Then at the 90 to 100 day mark (approximately) You will be able to feel the babies move, kick & become more active in her tummy. Sometimes if you look closely you can actually see the kits moving & kicking around. Remember, chinchillas are like any animal including humans, they can deliver premature or over due.

You may want to stop the dust bath for her when her tummy gets extremely hard & the babies are being felt. (Dusting too close to delivery time can cause an infection, so its wise to not let her have it for a while before & after delivery. ( Generally 10 days or so.) You may want to give her a few small pieces of apple, fresh or died; or even apple juice mixed 50/50 with water. (I use dried apple & baby apple or pear juice as they seem to like it more.) This will help her with getting her milk production going!

It’s best to get a postage scale & weight your female throughout the pregnancy & shortly there after. This will help detect, problems, how many kits there may be, if she has lost weight due to a problem, & when she may be ready. (I weigh all my chinchillas, it’s a good way to see if something is wrong or if they are expecting by the weight.) You also may want to weigh the babies everyday to make sure they are all eating properly. If you notice a drastic loss in weight or they dont seem to be gaining you may need to hand feed & rotate them with the mother & hand feeding. (most kits will lose a little weight shortly after birth.)

An expecting mother will a lot of times lay on her side & sleep a TON! You will sometimes see the kits move around when they get bigger & she lays like that, its TOO cool! All chinchillas will occassionally lay on their sides at times so don’t confuse the two. I have a lot of males that will do this, so its not a SURE sign of pregnancy, but if you see your female doing this often it is more than likely indicating that she is going to be a mommy soon.

Good luck!!!!

Wish you & your chinchilla a happy & healthy pregnancy/delivery!