- Historical reference
- Chapman's contribution
- Chinchillas today
Chinchillas in nature are native to South America, and their habitat in the wild is the Andes mountain range. Historical background - domestication and domestication, the first chinchilla farm, Chapman's contribution to the development of the chinchilla business.
South America gave the world a beautiful rodent.
The history of chinchillas was formed in South America. This rodent was named after one of the Indian tribes ChynChylla. Now this word sounds like chinchilla. Over time, the ChynChylla tribe was conquered by the Incas, who adopted the methods of breeding these rodents.
The habitat of the animals is the Andes mountain system in South America. They live at altitudes of up to 3000 meters above sea level.
Origin of Animals (Chinchillas)
Chinchillas are small rodents with very valuable fur. Their natural habitat is South America. Previously, they were found in the highlands of Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Peru. The first description of these, perhaps inaccurate, appeared in the fundamental work of a 16th century Spanish historian. This fundamental work describes the geographical, historical and cultural characteristics of the inhabitants of South America and the nature of those places.
But a more careful and pragmatic interest in these animals appeared in the 19th century, when their skins began to appear on sale in Europe and North America. Chinchilla fur coats are still considered the rarest and most expensive.
Living conditions in the wild
These animals live in harsh, cold conditions in the highlands. Therefore, they have very dense and thick fur. Among the different types of fur-bearing animals, chinchilla fur is the densest. This is very convenient for the animal in the sense that such fur does not contain parasites. But this fur cannot tolerate moisture - it quickly gets wet. So chinchillas like to swim not in water, but in sand.
In addition, the fur is not only warm and durable, but also very beautiful, which served their owners well. It was because of such high-quality fur that rodents began to be actively hunted. But a chinchilla is a small animal; to sew one fur coat you have to kill at least a hundred chinchillas. Hunting in the mountains is quite difficult, and finding small rodents is also difficult. So fur remained exotic and inaccessible for a long time. But the demand for it was always high and we had to invent other ways to obtain it. Now, for the sake of expensive fur, they are bred in captivity on fur farms. And they bred many different breeds.
These rodents in nature are divided into two types: long-tailed and short-tailed. Long-tailed chinchilla fur is considered more expensive than short-tailed chinchilla fur. Therefore, there are very few long-tailed chinchillas left, they are found only in certain regions of the high Andes, for example, in northern Chile. There are slightly more short-tailed animals preserved in nature. But, nevertheless, both species are listed in the Red Book.
Due to the high demand for fur, rodents were hunted extensively and successfully. Therefore, their numbers in their homeland, in the mountains of South America, have dropped significantly and their distribution area has also greatly decreased. Now these animals have begun to be protected in those places where they still live in the wild. But there are still much fewer of them now than there once were.
History of chinchilla breeding
Since there were fewer and fewer wild chinchillas in nature, they decided to breed them in captivity. Home breeding of rodents was started by an engineer from North America named Chapman. In 1919, he went to catch chinchillas in the mountains of South America. The matter turned out to be very labor-intensive and long. For 3 years, Chapman and his assistant hunters managed to catch only 11 pieces. It was impossible to figure out who was a chinchilla girl or a chinchilla boy, as many were caught, so many turned out. So out of all 11 there were only 3 females.
It took some more time to obtain permission from the government to take the animals out of the country to the United States. And before that, Chapman spent a long time adapting them to life in flat conditions.
Since 1923, rodents exported to California became the founders of the domestic chinchilla population. Chinchilla farms have appeared in many countries. And over time, they began to be kept not for the purpose of obtaining fur, but simply as pets.
Diet
Chinchillas are quite delicate animals, and their diet at home must be selected very carefully. What do chinchillas eat? The main food for them is dry hay (it must be properly dried, with a pleasant herbal smell).
Fresh, high-quality hay should always be in the cage. If there is not enough hay, the animal may die.
In addition to hay, the chinchilla is fed with special food, and the following are suitable complementary foods: cereal flakes, dried leaves, herbs or roots, corn and flax seed, dried pieces of vegetables. These animals happily gnaw on branches of fruit trees and bushes: apple, cherry, raspberry or currant trees. The main thing is that everything is dry and free of moisture.
Chinchillas need to be given water. Make sure the water is always fresh.
A responsible attitude to the selection of chinchilla nutrition prolongs their life; more than half of the animals die prematurely from intestinal disorders.
Biology of chinchillas
These animals are quite fertile, so it is beneficial to keep them in captivity. A girl chinchilla begins to bear offspring at about six months of age. And he does this two or three times a year. Each litter contains one or two or even three cubs. But with age, their number usually increases. So in the future, each chinchilla girl can bring up to 5 cubs at a time.
Unlike many rodents, chinchillas are long-lived. In captivity, subject to all conditions of detention, animals live 20 - 30 years. There were cases when they lived to be 37 years old. And they are capable of fully reproducing until they are 12-15 years old.
Digestive system
Chinchillas have a relatively small and narrow oral cavity, but with well-developed gums. Adult animals have 20 teeth in both jaws (upper and lower), including 4 incisors and 16 molars. The molars are set deeply in the jaw bones. The cross section of such a tooth has the shape of a square. On the grinding surface of the molars there are two transverse lamellar convexities that ensure grinding of food. The total length of these teeth is 1.2 cm. The length of the root is 0.9 cm, and the height of the crown rising above the gum is 0.3 cm. The upper and lower molars are located opposite each other, touching the entire surface. The incisors are somewhat curved. Their crowns overlap each other - the upper one on the lower one. The length of the crowns of these teeth is from 0.6 to 1.2 cm. Newborn chinchillas have 8 molars and 4 incisors. Incisors grow throughout the life of animals. The food, previously crushed by the teeth, then enters the relatively long digestive tract, which is almost 12 times longer than the chinchilla’s body. A simple single-chamber stomach is located in the left side of the abdominal cavity in the hypochondrium, has a length of 3.5 cm and a width of about 2 cm. The volume of the stomach can increase many times during the process of filling it. The small intestine is about 37 cm long. It contains the duodenum and a section of the small intestine that enters into a sac-like cecum of considerable size. Compared to the cecum of other mammals, in the chinchilla it is more adapted to digesting poor plant foods; it has numerous protuberances. The length of the cecum is on average 37.5 cm (27.8 - 42.7), width 2.4 cm (1.7 - 2.8), volume about 70 cubic cm (45-91). In the cecum, food remains for 4-5 days and undergoes further digestive processes. Basically, the breakdown of coarse fiber occurs here with the participation of numerous bacterial microflora, which, during digestion, is an additional source of protein. Absorption of water and non-protein nitrogen occurs in the large intestine. Here, too, thanks to the developed microflora, food is digested, as well as liquid is separated. The chinchilla's large intestine is very long, 2.5 times longer than the small intestine. Its internal structure ensures excellent water absorption, which is a functional adaptation of the body to the lack of water in the natural environment. The large intestine continues into the rectum, which ends at the anus. Undigested food residues, devoid of water, are removed through the anus in lumps in the form of rice grains about 0.6 cm long. The chinchilla excretes two types of feces: night and day. About 50% of the nighttime, soft feces, rich in complete microbial protein, vitamins B and K, are eaten by the chinchilla again, but it does not touch the daytime (hard) feces. The phenomenon of coprophagy (eating feces) in chinchillas is a natural and important physiological process. Night feces are similar in composition to the contents of the cecum, and, thanks to coprophagy, chinchillas “charge” the digestive tract with beneficial microflora. Thanks to coprophagy, food masses pass through the digestive tract twice and are better absorbed; the animal receives complete microbial protein and vitamins B and K, which are synthesized in the cecum.
Adult females are capable of producing 2-3 litters per year. Puberty in puppies can occur early: in females at 2-3 months, in males at 4-5 months, but generally young animals mature by 6-7 months. Females can come into heat from November to May, and its peak is in January - February. Pregnancy lasts 110..115 days. After whelping, the female can become covered again within 18 hours, that is, females combine pregnancy with lactation, some individuals are capable of this even after the second birth. But a third litter within a year is quite rare. The reproductive period lasts on average 8 years or more with a life expectancy of 15... 16 years. Reproductive ability largely depends on the conditions of detention. The female brings 1...5 cubs, most often - 2-3, but some had females who raised 5 puppies. Puppies are born covered with hair, sighted, weighing 35-65 g, and within a week they begin to eat other foods in addition to their mother's milk. Up to 8 months, the height of males and females is the same, then the latter surpass the former in terms of live weight. The chinchilla's body is covered with thick, smooth, silky fur, 2.5-3.0 cm high, with faint covering hair, forming a beautiful dark veil. The color of the hair on the back and sides of a standard chinchilla is from light gray to dark gray with a blue tint; on the abdomen it is white or bluish-white. The downy hair is slightly wavy, very thin, 12-16 microns, the coverts are twice as thick and only 4-8 mm longer than the underfur. On one square centimeter of skin surface there are more than 25 thousand hairs, significantly more than in other fur-bearing animals. The hair has a zonal color: the lower zone is dark gray, sometimes almost black or bluish, the middle zone is white, the upper zone is black, which gives the fur a beautiful play of tones on the curves of the body. The female and male do not differ in fur color. Currently, there is a wide variety of animals with different fur colors.
In nature, the long-tailed chinchilla lives in cold, dry desert conditions, where the relative humidity rarely exceeds 30%. and where there are exceptionally sharp fluctuations in air temperature. Chinchillas are very sensitive to high air humidity, especially in combination with sudden changes in temperature. On steep mountain slopes and rocky deserts, animals use natural caves and crevices as homes, where they escape the heat and cold. Hair shedding in animals of different ages does not occur simultaneously. Puppies change their hair coat 2 times until 7-9 months of age, when the formation of the hair coat ends and it matures for the first time. Adult chinchillas shed gradually throughout the year, and mass, simultaneous shedding is not observed among the entire herd. There are no seasonal differences in hair color, only hair density changes. Full maturity of the hairline in adult chinchillas occurs mainly from November to March and in some individuals lasts from several days to a month, and sometimes more.
Chinchillas are very mobile and quickly respond to external stimuli, as they have well-developed hearing and sense of smell. Chinchillas are active all year round. During the day, it is most active in the first half of the night and before dawn. The peculiarity of these rodents is that they cannot tidy their fur by combing. Therefore, to maintain their hair in a lush condition, they regularly “bathe” in dust. The chinchilla is adapted in natural conditions to feeding on dry plant food. Its main food is stems, leaves, seeds, roots and bulbs of cereals and other drought-resistant herbaceous plants, fruits, leaves and bark of evergreen shrubs, as well as cacti. All these, as well as alpine plants in general, have exceptionally high calorie content and nutritional value. Their need for water is satisfied by the moisture of the plants they eat. Chinchillas are mostly monogamous. Chinchillas mate at night. The fact of mating can be determined by indirect evidence: scraps of fur and the presence in the cell of a waxy elongated flagellum 2.5-3 cm long. With a greater degree of certainty, the fact of a female’s pregnancy can be determined by a change in her weight; the female’s gain compared to the previous weighing is 100-110 g every 15 days. Starting from the 60th day of pregnancy, the female’s nipples swell and her abdomen enlarges. Pregnant females are fed high-quality, fortified and varied food. 10 days before whelping, the nest box is filled with bedding (hay or straw) and turned over with the hole facing up so that the female does not scatter the bedding. A few days before whelping, the sand bath is removed from the cage. The male (for his safety and the female’s peace of mind) is removed from the cage or separated from the female by a partition. During the prenatal period and during childbirth, the room must be quiet; taking the female is prohibited. As birth approaches, the female moves little and does not touch the food. Most often, the female gives birth in the morning from 5 to 8 o'clock. Childbirth lasts from several minutes to several hours and occurs without outside help. During difficult births, the female is given sugar in the form of syrup 2-3 ml or sand 1.5-2 g 3-4 times a day. The cubs are born covered with down, with teeth erupted and eyes open, and on the first day they are able to move quite freely. One-day-old chinchillas are weighed and their sex is determined (in females the anal and genital openings are almost nearby, and in males they are at a much greater distance). Newborn chinchillas have a live weight of 30-70 g. Older females can give birth to more cubs than younger ones (up to 5-6 instead of 1-2). A day after giving birth, the female can be covered by the male. During the year, a female can cover herself and bring cubs 3 times, but a third covering is not advisable, since the female’s body is greatly depleted. As a rule, the female produces milk on the day of birth, but there are also delays in the appearance of milk (up to 3 days). Therefore, if the cubs are sitting hunched over, with their tail drooping, you need to examine the female. If she does not have milk, the chinchillas are placed with a dairy nurse or fed artificially: condensed milk (without sugar) diluted (1:2) in water or cow’s or goat’s milk. During the first week, the cubs are given water every 2.5-3 hours. A few days after birth, the nest box is installed with the entrance to the side so that the cubs can freely crawl out of it (for feeding). The lactation period lasts 45-60 days, at this age chinchilla chicks are approximately weaned; they can be weaned at 30 days of age, especially if the cubs are fed with boiled milk after weaning. Young animals grow quite quickly, month-old cubs are almost three times their one-day weight and weigh 114 g, at 60 days - 201 g, at 90 days - 270 g, at 120 days - 320 g, at 270-440 g and adults - 500 d. As a rule, transplanted young animals are kept in ordinary cages of several heads, females and males separately. Polygamous breeding of chinchillas is also common, when there are 2 - 4 females per male; with age, the number of females can reach up to 4 - 8.
How to determine the gender of a chinchilla
If you decide to have this animal at home, it is better to know in advance how to distinguish a female chinchilla from a male. You may want to have babies, or perhaps, on the contrary, you will decide to have one or a pair of rodents of the same sex so that they simply do not get bored, but you are not planning on having babies.
So that there are no surprises, and the animal that, in your opinion, a male chinchilla, does not bring unplanned offspring, approach the choice of a pet responsibly.
How to distinguish a boy from a girl chinchilla by appearance? It's easier with adults.
These animals have pronounced sexual dimorphism. This means that individuals of the same species differ significantly in appearance. The male chinchilla is significantly smaller and weighs less. If the average weight of a female is 800 g, then a male chinchilla weighs approximately 600 - 700 g.
Therefore, you can distinguish the sex of a chinchilla even by eye, if there are many of them and they are adults. It’s just that the chinchilla girl is larger and more active. And even more aggressive towards boys. So you can notice differences in behavior.
But with small cubs, problems may arise in how to distinguish a female chinchilla from a male. You can simply find on the Internet the genitals of chinchillas in the photo and their description.
There is no need to determine gender if the animal is not feeling well or is not in the mood. After identification, be sure to treat the chinchilla and stroke it to calm it down.
Outlining external data
Based on their appearance, chinchillas resemble large squirrels, and based on the way they move, they resemble bunnies. Fluffy animals have thick, thick and delicate fur, large dark eyes and large ears. It is with the help of the ears that chinchillas can reduce the overall temperature of the body, due to the fact that they have a dense capillary network.
The pet's body reaches 40 cm, and the tail - 15 cm. The forelimbs are shorter than the hind limbs, as a result of which their movement resembles hare jumps. Chinchillas have four toes on their hind legs and five on their front legs. With the help of their front paws, animals can carry out grasping movements.
A chinchilla has 20 teeth in its mouth; they grow throughout its entire life. Therefore, it is essential for an animal to be able to chew something.
Chinchilla girl or boy, who is better?
If you have never kept these animals at home, then it is difficult to say who will be better for you: a boy or a girl chinchilla. Females of this species are usually more active and dominant. But if you only need one animal, just choose the one you like best. After all, they all have not only different appearances, but also different characters.
Perhaps, having got yourself one animal, you will want to find a mate for it so that it does not get bored in your absence. Knowing the characteristics of behavior and maintenance and how to determine the gender of a chinchilla, you will be able to choose the right partner.
These animals are monogamous and usually form a pair for life. We must also take into account that in chinchilla “families” there is always a matriarchy, so the male chinchilla usually submits.
Features of keeping a chinchilla
- This animal is nocturnal, its activity increases in the dark.
- The chinchilla is afraid of direct sunlight and may even get burned.
- And she does not tolerate strong cold with drafts.
- A girl chinchilla can give birth 3 times a year, but the third time is undesirable, it weakens the body too much.
- You can only bathe a chinchilla in sand.
- Don't forget that this is a rodent. He should always have material to grind down his teeth. And you need to make sure that the animal doesn’t chew anything valuable in the house.
- The cage should be spacious, this is a very active animal, it needs a lot of space.
- But moving and traveling is very stressful for them. Try not to let this happen.
Characteristic traits of character and habits
Each chinchilla has its own character and habits; even animals from the same litter do not have the slightest unity. Just like humans, animals have 4 character types.
Choleric
This is a nimble, agile and active animal. During the daytime he dozes forward, however, his sleep is light, and he can wake up from the slightest rustle. During the period of activity, the pet, with inquisitive behavior, studies the objects around it and everything that interests it. Cholerics are quite timid, and, if frightened, the animal will rush around a limited area, demolishing everything that comes across on the road.
Sanguine
A chinchilla that has this type of character is also active and curious, but is less timid and can react calmly to loud sounds and rustles. The animal does not like to be in one position for a long period of time; it walks around the premises with interest with the permission of the owner.
Phlegmatic person
The phlegmatic chinchilla is a calm and balanced pet. Throughout the day she stays in her own home, replacing active games with sweet sleep. Even when awake, the phlegmatic animal moves measuredly, with some laziness.
