Gr. Ch. Zen Willow
Chinchilla Standard

Pedigree:

11th July 2008: After a *very* long honeymoon, Willow has finally given birth to 6 beautiful pinkies. Interestingly, I saw some pink eyes in the mix, which may be PEW but I reckon have a chance of being argente cream (pink-eyed chinchilla) - yay! The birth was a bit worrying as she took a very long time to do it. I went to feed the mice quite late last night, about 11pm, and found 4 unfed babies in the nest, and Willow walking around with an alarming lump on one side, almost as if a baby had gotten caught somewhere it shouldn't have been. Willow is the oldest female I've bred here - she's 9 months old now - and I was a bit worried I'd made a mistake! I stroked her and moved the lump further inside, not sure if that helped or not. But, today she seems to be fine, and is protective of her extremely fat babies with the biggest milk bands I've ever seen! I'll update with pics in the next few days.

13th July 2008: Tonight I tried to get a good look at the bubs but her nest is so well constructed I couldn't get in! A couple of weeks ago she moved the nest from the plastic cave to the middle of the floor, which I thought was a bit odd, but I can't fault her construction - bits of toilet tube, tissue and fluff are practically sewn together with litter, it's absolutely impenetrable.

BUT! There is a flaw in her cunning plan! She has hollowed out the bottom of the nest, giving her a fair size area in there - including the plastic bottom of the cage, which is clear! (Don't worry, the bubs are warm enough, I have tea towels around the edges and a carpet square under the cage making sure there's no draft).

18th July 2008: As promised, here are some pics. I swear 1 or 2 of the pale ones are a slightly oranger pale than white... I could totally be imagining it though! I tried to do some creative shots with pyramid-ing bubs, but the shots didn't really come out... but they're too cute not to post! biggrin.gif (One of the pale babies was excluded because he was leaping all over the place and not cooperating!)

22nd October 2008: This is what I think we have:

• 1 x chinchilla fox girl - STAYING (Paprika)
• 1 x chinchilla girl - JEN
• 1 x argente cream girl - STAYING (Clover)
• 3 x argente cream boys - 1 STAYING (Ash), 2 SARAH

And here's another pic of the adorable bubs.

29th July 2008: A few pics - sorry about the funny colour of them, the heater was on next to me at the time, so they all look orange! I tried to edit the colour a bit in photoshop. They've grown SO fast! They're only 2.5 weeks old, but I swear they look more than that.

4th November 2008: Ok, I am 99% positive that the 3 boys are argente cream. I am still undecided on the female, she may be PEW. If she is argente cream, then she is a very pale one. All of the babies have the HUGEST ears ever. Some are on the top of their heads like mum, and some are lovely and wide-set like dad. The chinchillas have bigger eyes than the rest at this point, but both parents have huge eyes, so i'm sure the p.e. bubs will catch up soon. Anyway, here are some more pics! These are not necessarily of different mice, just the ones that turned out well.