Furrytails

Acronyms for exotic mammals

2012-01-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

Happy new year.
Hope you had a good year in 2011.

I've made a post similar to this on the EFK forum

To start with, I found it very hard to navigate amongst the most common acronyms for different exotic mammal species.
I'm not that much into birds, reptiles, fish and the like, so this it only going to be a list for mammals.
If anybody out there reads this, and think a list for other animals would be cool, or I'm missing something, then please comment, and I'll try and make a list.
Or copy the idea, and post it on your site (a reply here + a link to your site and a link back to mine, would be highly appreciated).

AGD = Asian Garden Dormouse
APD = African Pygmy Dormouse

APH = African Pygmy Hedgehog

APM = African Pygmy Mouse

APR = African Pouched Rat

GPR = Gambian Pouched Rat

PD = Prairie Dog

RGS = Richardson's Ground Squirrel

STO = Short Tailed Opossum

Where has the chinchilla gone?

2011-09-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

Thea messing around with a hammock.
We had to get her out, because we had plans for the day. I'm not sure if she could get out on her own or not.

She's the only chin we have, that has this bad habit of destroying every thing she gets near, bless her.

Sexing 1 day old chinchilla kits

2011-07-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

It's actually quite easy determining the gender of very young chinchilla kits.
The first couple of times can be a problem, but it becomes easier with time. The best reference is when you've seen both a young male and female.

As seen above, the male has some space between the anus and genitalia, whereas there's no space when it's a female. Chances are it's a female, if you are not quite sure about what you are looking at.

If in doubt, wait a couple of days or a week, then there shouldn't be anything to mistake.

In adult animals, the difference becomes more evident. When the male becomes sexually mature his testicles will fall down, giving the impression he has some excess skin around his genitalia and anus.

Even though it should be quite easy to tell the sex after a couple of litters, every body can make mistakes. Therefore; be sure to check the gender around 10 weeks, because some animals do become sexually mature here. You should also check the gender yourself, when buying a chinchilla, and not only rely on what the breeder tells you.

Minipiv has passed away

2011-05-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

As of now, I'm quite sure every diagnose she's gotten has been wrong.
To be honest, I think she had cancer.

None of the symptoms fit anything.

She gained a bit of weight, the she got a constipation, and dropped down to her low 440 grams again. After about 5-7 days, she had lost another 40 grams.
It was so awful to touch her.
We were going to get her euthanized, but she died in the morning, around 7. I'm kinda glad about this though. I really hate taking sick animals to the vet, just to get them euthanized at the vets. It should be done at home, when their time has come.

Anyway, I believe she has had cancer. She started getting these warts on her fingers. and the last couple of days, they came very rapidly. The last time I saw an animal with similar symptoms, was when one of my parents dogs had cancer.
So right now I'm getting her autopsied. I hope this will cast some light on the whole thing.

It annoys me so much, that there's really nobody who are going to learn anything from this, except me and Nick (the boyfriend).
Why don't they try and learn something from all of this mess?

Every thing had to go so fast when she was dead, that I took her to my ordinary vet. She should have gone to a university vet (not sure what the right term is for this) so that they could have learned something from her. But you tend not to think straight when you find your animal dead in the cage.

Looked like she just died in her sleep. Normally it's quite easy to tell when an animals is dead, but she was so thing and so cold before she died, it was so hard to tell that she was actually dead.
My poor little girl. I should have gotten her euthanized weeks ago

Minipiv

2011-02-07T05:50:00.000-08:00

Guess I'de better update.

I got a bit frustrated with my vet.
Nothing showed up on her x-rays.
One said there was no point in doing any blood tests. When I called and asked them about checking her poop, I got an other vet. He didn't sound like he wanted to check her poop, but he wanted to check her blood.
After about 12 hours with a chinchilla that wouldn't come around, and he sounded like they probably wouldn't use gas, but do it the same way when taking a blood sample, I just didn't want to let them do anything.

So I called one of the best rodent and exotic specialists here. She thought the poop was a good way to go, especially with such a sick animal.
And I know they have the facilities to use gas and an oxygen chamber if the animals do not come out quick enough.

I went down to the vet, left a sample, and went home. This was wednesday. If they could check them on their own they would call around friday. If they had to send them to a bigger lab, I would get an answer around tuesday.

Friday around lunch she looked very bad, and after talking to one of the veterinary nurses I got an acute appointment.
I was told the rodent expert (Ingeborg) didn't have the time - she was totally booked up - but she was the one who looked at her anyway. That was such a relief. I've been down there before, where someone who didn't have a clue about chinchillas looked at my animals. It's quite annoying to have someone who doesn't know the first thing to look at your animal, not find anything out, and pay double for it -_- That's what happens if you get there after hours.

Back to Minipiv, Ingeborg did agree she was way to small. The scale said 440 grams, but it could be anything from 440-449. Not the best scale for small animals, but it seams like that's what all the vets here use.
Mini was outgoing and pooping like she should. Ingeborg took a sample, and said something about she'd might be looking at it, if she got the time.
Then Mini decided to pee. Ingeborg ran out of the room, and came back with one of those strips that test for all sorts of things.
Every thing looked fine. It even tested for diabetes, and it was negative.

We talked a bit about what to do. She didn't really want to do the blood tests before we got an answer about the poop.
She couldn't feel anything wrong anywhere, and everything looked fine. No sign of liver problems or an infection. Nice teeth, and she was eating like always.
She did get a vitamin shot though.
I wish my own vet had just given her a vitamin shot. She ate like a crazy when we came home, and seams a lot more lively, she even put on at least 5 grams over the weekend - yay. That's the first time we've seen an increase in her weight. It's been either steady or going down the last couple of weeks.

I'm hoping they are going to call me tomorrow. I'm kinda hoping she has some parasites. That would make everything a lot easier.
And I have to tell them about the impact of the vitamin shot.
I have been thinking that something might went wrong with her last litter, and she didn't get all she needed.
That could have cause a kind of negative spiral for her.

We just have to wait and see.

Oh, and one more thing.
I did suspect Madonna of being pregnant.
Yesterday I noticed how she was eating like a little pig, and looked like a pregnant GP >_< I'm quite sure she's pregnant, and she is going to give birth in a short time :)
I'm hoping for something chocolate ebony or homo pink white ebony :)

Thin chinchilla

2011-01-18T04:17:00.000-08:00

We are in the process of moving, so I've been neglecting my chins a bit.
They've had all the food, water and hay they need, but I have not had the time to talk as much with them as I normally have.

I had noticed that one of our females - Minipiv - was a bit on the thin side, but I wanted to give it some time, and see if she could gain some weight on her own.
My mom has been looking after the animals when I've been to the new flat, but she doesn't really notice the small things. It's not something I blame her for, you really need to know the animals in order to notice the small problems.

Anyhow, when I got home last Friday, Mini was a lot thinner than I had expected, so I had to call the vet Monday. In the mean time I got some critical care into her, just to be on the safe site.
When I got to the vet, she could feel there wasn't really any food in Mini, and a weight at about 480 grams - way too low.
When looking at Minis teeth, the vet couldn't really see anything because of some food in her mouth, so we agreed I should come back today, so she could get a closer look at her.
The rest of the day we - Nicholas and I - spent a lot of time with Mini, warming her and feeding her some mush made of some Critical Care, boiled water and her pellets.
She must have been hungry for quite a while, because she ate like a crazy. I have been watching her though, and have seen her eating, but I guess she has had some problems grinding down the food and swallowing it.
She began pooping a lot, and got a lot more energetic, even though she never really seamed that low on energy.

Today the vet still had a problem seeing anything, so they kept her, and I have to call them back in a while.
I'm hoping everything went smooth, and there's nothing seriously wrong. I think it's a minor problem with her teeth, and hope it will be over today.
I am a bit worried though. It's never a good feeling leaving your animals at the vet.

Smilies

2010-12-31T06:14:00.000-08:00

This haven't got anything to do with my chinnies or any other animal for that matter, but a comic I'm working on.

I have a site for the comic (not up and running yet though), and wanted some smilies that looked like the animals in the comic.
I have some ideas for other expressions, but right now there is 7 different smilies, and 6 different animals, so I should end up with 42 smilies 18 of these will be animated.

Chinchilla

Fox

Hedgehog

I'm thinking about doing one more animation where it looks from site to site.

They are quite easy to do, it's just a bit boring doing them all at once, because they look so alike :)

Not so good bottles

2010-11-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how I feel about my new bottles.

I didn't mention they are from LivingWorld...

They have all this fancy stuff that should prevent them from dripping.
That's all nice and dandy, but at times it also prevents my animals from getting any water...

It took me about 10-15 minutes to get the big one to work. Now it works just fine.
The little one worked okay from the start, but yesterday it wouldn't work at all.

On the bright site, they stay where you put them on the cage, and they can be used for all types of cages.
One side of the bottle is flat, and the end the animals can drink from is all metal.
There's no plastic what so ever...

I'm not sure what to think about them.
I really like that there's no plastic, but on the other hand, if they stop working from one minute to the next...

Glass bottles

2010-11-18T13:51:00.000-08:00

We finally found some glass bottles.
One of our girls keeps making a hole in the plastic bottles but it's been near impossible to find any glass bottles, and importing from USA is more than a bit expensive.

Inside the bottles are a tiny plastic carrot to show the water level ^_^
I'm really looking forward to trying these out.

2 litters on the way.

2010-11-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

I was hoping my one female would give birth in start november, but nothing happened, so I think she may give birth around start december.

I also think my other female might be pregnant.
I'm hoping she'll give me a homo pink white ebony with some nice markings. It's not a kit I can keep, but I do like that mutation, and it would be nice to see some nice kits from this female :)

I haven't introduced my two females properly yet.
We are moving around 1th december, so I'm waiting until this time. The I'll be able to introduce them in a nice big new cage.

We are thinking about how to make the new cages.
It's either going to be large cages for breeding, and smaller cages for pure pets, or the other way around.
At the moment I think we are going with the smaller ones for breeding, as they will be designed in a way so we can split them into two cages.
The big cage is 140 cm high, 100 cm long and 60 cm deep. That's about 55.1" x 39.4" x 39,4"

The cages I have in mind, would be 140cm x 80cm x 60cm
It's not that much smaller, but it would be a lot easier to move around.

I can't make the cages any deeper because there's 30 cm in the bottom used for storage + 5 cm for wheels. That's a 175 cm high cage - it's about 6-7 cm higher than me. If it gets any deeper, I have no chance in hell of getting to animals in the top of the cage, or cleaning it out, with out me standing on something.

If the smaller cages are going to be our breeding cages, they can be split in half, so each cage will be 75 x 80 x 60 cm
We will put the male in the top, and the female with kits in the bottom.
When the kits are ready to be weaned, the cage can be split again and they can be put in the bottom or the top.

More to come when we hopefully get two litters and our new cages :)
Oh - and I'm going to a show this weekend with my homo brown ebony ;)

A post a month

2010-08-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to try and post here once every month.

I'm not really blogging at the moment.
Nearly all my time is spend on DCKF (Danish Chinchillaclub), so blogging about the critters is not that high on my list.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I'm trying to introduce two of my females.
It's going really slow.
A combination of me being a bit lazy and the weather. It's been so hot here, so I've not wanted to move the animals to a neutral ground. The only really good neutral ground I have is a big bathroom. But it has no windows, so it becomes very hot in there when it's hot outside...
Normally I have no problem keeping the room the animals are in, a nice cool temperature. This summer has been a bit weird though, and the humidity had been very high, so it's been a bit of a problem keeping it cool enough.

Our baby girl (One Hit Wanda) has found a nice family. She has not moved out yet, but they are very nice and I really am looking forward to following Wanda aka Chewie in the future.
They are going to call her Chewbacca. Chewie actually suites her quite well :)

The homo tan boy we brought home is a bit annoying. I'm crossing my fingers it's just hes age though. He keeps on biting, and biting hard, if we try and touch him trough the bars.
The last animal I had that bit me like that, was my old male, but he grew out of it.
Other that that he's a very sweet boy. Not all that happy about getting out, but once out he sits still and lets us do almost every thing we want to do with him.
I'm not sure how good he is with kids though... And it's a bit of a problem that kids can't pet him trough the cage.

That's a nice thing with friendly animals. You can take them out, and let small kids pet them, and the kids can stick their fingers in the cages with out any risk of them getting bitten.

Nick and I were out talking about chinchillas at a very big pets shop, and we had these 3 friendly animals with us.
Is was so nice to see how they didn't mind being petted a bit by both kits and grownups, and if we took them out, they were very calm and didn't mind at all.
After a while it got a bit too hot for them though. But that's a nice way of introducing chinchillas to people. They get to see it's quite calm animals, but still chinchillas though, so no cuddly pet.
I was especially proud of my girl Nebri (it was dad christian, mom nebri and kit wanda). She was so good and sweet.
Wanda surprised me. People just took her up, but she couldn't care less. She looked like she had a blast.

Other than that it has been rather uneventful the last couple of months.

I'll try and write again before a whole month passes by.

Baby chinchilla + new boy

2010-06-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

I'm so bad at updating this blog :S

Mini gave birth to a cute little medium ebony girl on the 16. of june.
For some reason she only seams to get litters of one, so we thought of renaming her One Hit Wonder.
But it already says Furrytails' Nebri on her predegree (we call her Mini, but that's not her name ;)), so now we are going to call the kit One Hit Wanda (that name is just so clever -_- we are very creative as you see ;)).

Other than that, we got a new boy. He's a beautiful homo medium tan (gosh I sound like Steve Irwin), I've never seen such a dark homo tan before.
He's been put in with Madonna. They seam to like each other :) He's a bit "flat" in the face, and kinda round. Madonna is a bit too pointy for my taste, so it's nice she has a mate that may make the kits look the way we want :)
A funny thing though. He's tail is all white. I'm going to put a picture of him onto my homepage one of the next days.
He also have very tiny feet compared to Madonna. I have a feeling it has something to do with genetics.
Some day I'm going to look in to this :)

German hedgie forum

2010-03-26T00:34:00.001-07:00

FINALLY I found a German forum where they don't mind me speaking English :)
So now I'm just hoping one of them want to act as my "mentor" and I can get a long eared hedgie boy at some point :)

I really need my own apartment before this can happen. And a car... It's not fun taking the train to Germany... I would definitely need a car ;)

I'm crossing my fingers I do not have to get a hedgehog from a pet store :)

Treating Fungus

2010-03-10T15:30:00.001-08:00

Fungus in chinchillas is actually really easy to treat.
All you need is:
5 grams of sulphur powder
10 grams of babypowder

This should be used for 1 kilogram of chinchilla sand/dust.

It should not be used for more than 1-2 weeks. If the problem hasen't cleared up by then, you need to consult your vet.

Fungus typically starts around the nose, ears or eyes. You will see hair loss and red skin.
If you are not sure about what's wrong, please consult a vet.

Picture time

2010-03-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

Better late than never :)

Click on the thumbnails if you want them bigger.

They are from the 28. february :)

This is the dad Christian. We took him out, and he was so bummed after his little run around. Normally his not that happy about cuddling, but if he's tired enough he loves it, it seams ;)

A lot of pics with mom (Mini) and Dino :) The last is the best one imo. If you look at Minis bum, you can see a tiny little face, trying to get under mom ;)

Pure Mini. On the 3. you can see Dino.

What should the little boy be called?

2010-02-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

We are trying to figure out what to call him, so far we are thinging about the following:
Furrytails' Bambam
Furrytails' Dino (we prefer this at the moment)
Furrytails' Vaffel
Furrytails' Frikadelle

He's 48 grams today, so he has lost a bit of weight, but he's quite active today, so it shouldn't be a problem :)

Update on the boy

2010-02-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

He has now opened his eye :)
When Nick came by, we looked at it, and it had opened on it's own. It's a bit smaller than the other eye though. But I think it is normal. It looks like an eye on a newborn (a couple of hours old).
And here are some pictures of the little guy :)

Sorry about the quality, but it's very dark where he sits, so I had to blitz him and that's nearly never a good thing. I'll try and get some pictures of him to morrow in daylight. I prefer to take pictures of the animals, on some red couches we have, but this little guy is just not old enough to get over there yet.

And as you can see from the pictures, hes a Tan boy as I thought to begin with :)

Eye problem

2010-02-26T09:15:00.000-08:00

So I called the fur breeder.
He told me to let it be, and it would be fine on it's own.
If I want to, I can use a q-tip and make they eyelid a little wet, to try and get the eye open.
When Nicholas comes by later we will try and do that :)

Ebony?

2010-02-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I have no clue right now.
This morning I could swear he was medium tan, now he looks more like a medium ebony.

I have absolutely no idea what he is, other than medium -_-
The fur on hes feet looks kinda gray compared to his skin colour, and hes ears could look both grey and pink.
Normally when we get kits whit beige in them, they also have white in them, so their ears are near white and not pink.
Wilson White animals is quite easy to identify, but this one... And you would think it would be easy to see if the fur was brow or grey.
I guess that's the same thing that goes wrong, when people say their hetero beige animals are standard grey animals...

Other than that, his left eye won't open.
I can't decide if I should try and help him by soaking the eye a bit, or just leave it be.
We've had one female with this problem. With her it was both the eyes though. We helped her out, but then a lot of people commented and told me that was not the way to go.
Now I'm all confused. Some say help, some say help after a few hours to a day and then we have some that say do not help at all...
Conflicting info - whoopdedoo...
Thinking about calling a fur breeder, and ask what he wold do. He must have some info on the subject, and even though the hobby breeders I know are good breeders, they just do not have as many animals as a fur breeder...

Little new Tan boy

2010-02-26T00:20:00.001-08:00

This morning between 5.00 and 9.00 Minipiv gave birth to a beautiful little Tan boy :)
He weighs 51 grams, and looks quite big, so I guess there's no more kits in her.

He looks quite new, so I will let Mini and the little boy have a couple of hours, before I begin taking any pictures of him :)

Madonna and Breeding

2010-02-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Madonna is turning out to have quite a pointy nose... To pointy for my liking to be honest. I still think Thea and Mini are beautiful animals, and I want my animals to look like them.

So I need to find a near baby-faces male, but still not over 700 grams (I still prefer the mails to be between 500-600 grams).

But it should be a lot easier to find a male to my liking, if he does not have to have a pointy nose.

And talking about pointy. I've notices that a lot of all black animals tend to be quite pointy and have a pear form, and not the brick-look you want when showing. It's kinda weird IMO. I'm not sure it's the same in Norway or Sweden. Might have something to do with the fact, that ebony can be quite a challenge to breed

I'm not sure if I want a chocolate or homo brown ebony though. I'm a sucker for the chocolate animals, but I think homo would be the best way to go, because I really want to try and focus on beige, white, ebony and velvet mutations. I would prefer to try and focus on brown ebony, pink white ebony, tov brown ebony and tov pw ebony.
Might sound weird, but on the other hand. It's much easier to work with 2-4 mutations than it is to work with a little of it all.

I'm also beginning to see, that we need to focus, if we want any hope of selling young in the future.
Too bad the std. grey isn't a colour people want. They are so beautiful, I especially like the very light grey animals. But they are near impossible to sell, and I just do not have the space to keep breeding and keeping all the std. kids we could get.
Don't get me wrong. I can keep the kits we get, if it should ever be a problem to sell them, but to focus on std. grey would be a breeding suicide.

That got a bit long - oh well... That's what you get when you feel like writing in english :)

The last month is the worst

2010-01-30T11:02:00.000-08:00

So Mini is pregnant. There's about one month left of her pregnancy, and it's by far the worst. Not that she's sick or any thing, but it's now all the signs are showing, and I just can't wait :)
She sleeps way more on the side, is more sleepy, want's to cuddle a lot and her belly is really beginning to show.
Christian is also acting different, and there's no doubt he knows that something is up.

I'm hoping for a little chocolate male. Too bad I do not have the space >_<
I would love to get a nice little chocolate male, and a nice little homo ebony girl for him ;)

All I have to do, is to find a job for Nicholas, and get a place to live - that shouldn't be a problem in what... 4 months? -_-

Found a place ^_^

2010-01-16T01:16:00.000-08:00

Normally I'm not that happy about getting animals from pet shops, but yesterday I was visiting this one big shop, and they may have all the animals I want ^_^
It used to be a very bad store in my opinion, but they changed owner a year ago, and it seams like it's a cool place now.
They have all these theme days, where they get people to come and speak about animals, and when I talked about the danish chinchilla club, and that I know people in the GP and ferret club, they got all exited and got my name... That's so cool.

But the cool thing is, they can get long eared hedgies, and as far as I could understand, they will be able to tell me what subspecies they have. That is so cool. It's very rare to find people who know what subspecies they have, and if I want to breed the hedgie at one point, I really need to find out what subspecies I have.

They can also get african pygmy dormice and asian/garden dormice.
The had a lot of persian jirds and some duprasi, animals I've been looking into.
I see duprasi from time to time, but they are mostly bread for feeding, and even though a pet store duprasi might not be the best animal when it comes to genetics, I would rater have such an animal than a feeder animal because I think the risk of inbreeding with feeders a greater.
When it comes to jirds the most common one is the mongolian gerbil.
I've also seen the shaws jird from time to time, but it's rare to see any other species.

I know it's possible to get ADS's from breeders from time to time. I haven't seen the asian ones here though. I know they are in germany and holland.

So I'm happy at the moment, I know where to get a lot of species I really want.
Now I just need to contach one from DCKF (Danish Chinchilla Pet Association) and talk about speaking in the store :)

Problems with Fnug

2010-01-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

I wrote this on a forum to get some views on what might be wrong with Fnug.

I'm also going to post it here, as it describes the problems quiet well even though it might not sound/look too much like a blog entry:

First a little background story:
Fnug is about 5 years old.
When she was born she had a weight of 30 grams. The day after it was 29-28 grams, and she didn't gain any weight until she was about 3 days old. We had to give her some extra milk to help her out, even though mom did have enough milk for both kits.
Here eyes were closed, so we helped her open them.

She's always been a bit weird. She can sleep trough almost every thing. I've been scared that she was dead a couple of times, because I could pick her up when she was sleeping, before she noticed anything.
She also have some very weird tendencies, I've never seen in a chinchilla before, so we think she may have some brain damage.

Now to the problem:
About 1½ months ago she had some problems with her stomach. She was all bloated, and the vet thought it might be colic. A lot of fibreplex and tummy rubbing later she was all better.
When they checked her for this, they noticed a heart murmur.

Yesterday we were at the vets again. This time because of a swollen leg.
It turns out it's because of oedema, and this might be related to her heart murmur.
She's very thin, and haven't eaten that much for quite some time. But the past couple of weeks, she's been eating hay like a crazy chin. She sleeps with her head in they hay, so when she wakes up, she can just munch some hay and go right back to sleep.
She seams to be cold. She's not cold to touch, bur she likes warm places. The warmer the better. If she could just lie with me under my blanket and eat hay all the time, I think she would be in heaven.
But when she falls asleep, she has this tendency to get something that looks like seizures. Especially her swollen bag leg starts twitching, and she's all over the place until she wakes up and looks very confused.
Today I noticed it started around her face/whiskers, and then moved down the body.

I've seen this a couple of times before in one of our late chinchillas that had epilepsy, but it's not quite the same thing with Fnug.

Other than that, she drinks a lot. Yesterday she peed on me twice in about 10 minutes. She's never done that before.
Also her feces looks normal one moment, then it looks like she may be getting a mild constipation, and the next moment she might be getting diarrhea.
If we take her from her cage, and put her into a pet carrier she can get a very bad case of diarrhea in 1-2 minutes, and the after ½-1 hour it's all gone.

I'm so lost with her.
I can't figure out if we should put her trough some tests and try and find out what's wrong with her.
At the moment I'm personally thinking kidney failure. My mom had a dog many years ago who had kind of the same symptoms with the seizures and it was kidney failure.
But the whole eating thing doesn't really fit into anything.
It gives sense to think it's the heart murmur that causes the problem.
I have always known that Fnug wouldn't be her for as long as a "normal" chinchilla.

I can almost positively rule out anything wrong with the hay and/or feed because she lives with her sister, and nothing is ever wrong with her. She's a totally normal chinchilla.

Oh yeah, and one last thing.
Fnug is not good at holding her balance if she's not walking on a sturdy surface, she nearly never jumps or runs like a normal chin, but walks along like a kangaroo.
But if she starts to run and jump, it's like she gets the hang of it after a few minutes. Often it's like she's all tired out a short while after she starts to move like a chin, and then she needs a break. She prefers to take these breaks on me or my boyfriend.
I think the whole walking thing has been getting worse with her mad hind leg.

Her weight is around 440-450 grams. It swings quite a lot between these numbers, so I can't get any closer.

Rutine cleaning took 4 hours

2010-01-02T16:12:00.000-08:00

We wanted to clean cages today... We only got to clean one.
That stupid Thea. She's eaten trough a massive plastic bottom, and eaten then wheel below.
So we had to fix the cage.
Now the plastic bottom contains one big wooden plate, so they can't eat the plastic. And we put Mystique and Madonna in the cage.

We so need to build some new cages... Something's all wrong with the one we fixed. We put 4 new wheels on it, the same size and all, but not it's all wobbly...

Stupid cages...

It didn't really take 4 hours. We needed to find some stuff and do other things in between. But from start to finish 4 hours had passed.

Chinchilla links

2010-01-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

I'm really bad at updating this blog.
I tend to update my danish Furrytails blog when I'm very tired, or haven't got that much time, so I never get to this one. And when I finally get to this one, so much time has passed it seams kinda stupid to update.

But now I'm going to post some links you may find useful.
I do not have that many american links because it's very expensive to order from USA for me.
Inside the EU is best, then they don't add toll...

So let's see what we've got :)

Chinworld.com
They have 2 things I like here.
Wheels and Books.
They have some books by Alice Kline, one of the "old dogs" in the fur farming industry. Her books are very good, and you get some nice knowledge trough them, you'll have a hard time find in any other books.
As far as I know, these books can't be bought any where else.
They they have some wheels. It can be very hard finding good chinchilla wheels. They have both the standard wheel, and the flying saucer.
These can be bought other places, but this is one of the easiest places to get them, and they are not that expensive compared to some other places :)

HammockyHammocks
This is a shop located in the UK.
The have some very nice and very good quality hammocks, beds, tunnels and other stuff like that in polar fleece. All their things are hand made.
Depending on the size of your cage, get as big hammocks as possible. A hammock can easily become too small, but never too big.
Note that these can not be destroyed as fast as the common ferret hammock in pet shops.
The profit goes to pet rescues.

Chinchillas2Shop
An other shop located in the UK, and one of my personal favorites.
They have a lot of natural chew toys for chinchillas. A year or two ago they also started adding an icon to show if the toys are degu safe.
Some of the things they have can be bought from other stores, but no other store (as far as I know) has that big a variation in their stock. So if you prefer natural toys and treats, this is definitely a place you need to visit :)

Zooplus.com
Zooplus.co.uk
Zooplus.de
Same shop, but different countries.
They do not have that many things, but they do have some nice cages. I'm not sure about the prices in USA and UK but in Germany they are quite cheap.
They do have some shops in other countries, you can see them by liking on "shop" on the site.

Petpile.dk
The site is in danish, but you can use the google translator on it.
As far as I know, she ships to other countries.
It's kinda the same as HammockyHammocks, but she also has some treats just for rats, and some plastic things used for small critters as huts.
Alle the polar fleece stuff is hand made.
Note that these can not be destroyed as fast as the common ferret hammock in pet shops.

Danchin shop
This is their english shop.
They have some super nice feed, hay, home made cages, treats and some other things.
Definitely worth a visit.

So that was the end to my chinchilla link tour...
If you have some good links please feel free to put them down in a comment below, and I will look at the site :)

Mating between Mini and Christian

2009-11-09T05:35:00.000-08:00

7/11 Mini and Christian was out for a run, and mated several times.
We found 2 heat plugs, and hope to see kits 26/02 2010

First show

2009-11-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

So I went to my first show this weekend, arranged by DCKF - Danish Chinchilla Pet Club.

Turbo Chins Christian got 80 points and a 3. place in his group (out of 4).

Furrytails Nebri aka Mini got 83 points and an 8. place out of 9 in her group. I'm surprised she didn't get a lot lower points than the other animals there, but 4 out of the 9 animals got 83 points.

All in all there were a little over 100 animals.

It was actually quite fun, and I'm thinking about going to the next one as well.
I'm especially proud of Mini because she's out of my own animals. She didn't take the whole ordeal too good though, so I'm not sure if I can take her to other shows.
I would love to show Furrytails Madonna at some point.

Update

2009-11-02T12:10:00.001-08:00

So Madonna turned 12 this sunday, so I put her with Mystique.
At first Madonna didn't like the new cage much. Mystique, on the other hand, was thrilled that she got a little mate again.
MiniPiv (Madonnas mom) got a bit mad the first night, and made a lot of noise.
The next night she was quiet, but Christian (Madonnas dad) started acting all crazy. He was talking a lot, and just jumping around the cage like a nut. When I went to see what was going on, I could pet him a lot more than with Madonna in the cage. It seams he's very happy about the whole situation. No little brat is trying to climb his back any more :)

So they are all happy now, and I'm going to my first chinchilla show this weekend.
I'm taking Mini and Christian with me. Not a lot of animals I know, but I have to start some where :)

And I'm still on the look for a chocolate male for Madonna, but nobody seams to be breeding much chocolate at the moment.

Chinfo - Feeding

2009-10-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about writing some of the stuff down, normally done here in Denmark, because I know a lot of it is very different to how people in the US and UK do things.

I do not think that the other ways of doing things are wrong, I simply want to inform about differen ways of doing things :)

So let's start out with feeding:
There are a couple of different ways to do this. The most important way is that you feel good about the way you are feeding.
Remember to check the specific feed where you live. As far as I can understand, some types of feed we have are quite good, but the same feed in US can be very bad.

You need to bear in mind that the pellets we have are not made by looking at what the chinchilla eat in the wild, but made by furfarmers, to get animals that would thrive and get a nice fur. There is nothing wrong with this, but people have a tendensy to forget this, and think that some chinchilla pellets are the only right way to go, and they can never be improved.

Then we have to look at what the specific pellet is made for. If the pellet is made for farmers, it might not be the right pellet for you and your animal. In general they have a very high content of protein. This is good for females who are used for breeding, but it's not the best for the avrage pet chinchilla.

You need to find a pellet made for pet chinchillas. This could be some of VitaKrafts pellets.

Personally I'm very fond of VitaSpecial.
They have 3 different types of pellets. One for young animals, one for grown animals, and one for senior animals.
The biggest problem about these pellets is, that they are quite expensive.

It's also possible to get a some feeding products where a lot of different things have been mixed together.
For the most part, these products is something you should avoid. They do have some good parts, but they also contain a lot of not so good treats, like nuts and banana. Thes treats can be used, but should not be given in big amounts.

If you'r not happy about only using one type of pellets, it's okay to mix different types of pellets, as long as it's a good quality. Some animals will enjoy being able to choose between the different types of pellets.

Now you may have an idea about what to feed your pet chinchilla.

Let's look at how to feed:
A chinchilla eats about 30 grams of pellets a day. They do not, however, have a tendensy to overeat, so it's not a problem giving more pellets.

You should feed once or twice a day. It depends on what suites you best. You can feed early in the morning, late in the eavening or at both times.
The first time you feed, put 30 grams of pellets in the bowl (or 15 if you feed twice a day), the next time you are going to feed, there should be a few pellets left. If there's no left, give a bit more pellets. If there's a lot left, give a bit less pellets.
The left over pellets should be thrown out. They will get bad if left in the bowl, because they get a lot of mouisture from the air.

Hay:
Now we've looked at pellets, let's look at hay.
Hay is not the main feed, because all the nutrients is in pellets, but the chinchilla still need some hay for the system to work. There should always be some hay in the cage.

The most important thing when buying hay is to be sure it's not bad. This is quite easy to check.
Bad hay:
There should be no mold in the hay.
They hay must not be wet.
It should be dust free. Dust is a sign of mold.
Good hay:
It has a nice, fresh smell.
It's dry
If you find any dead insects like grashoppers, this is okay, and a sign they haven't usen any pesticides where the hay was grown.

If you are not sure about a pack of hay, don't buy it!

Update

2009-09-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

A little update on colours.

Nebri and Madonna are both TOV. So Nebri is TOV Pink White and Madonna is TOV Pink White Ebony.

So Madonna won't get a TOV mate when the time comes :)

I'm thinking about just going with an extra dark tan/Chocolate hetero, instead of a homo beige.

Long eared hedgehog

2009-09-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not updating that much at the moment. Neither on the danish version or in here.
So I thought I'de might as well try and get some help :)

I'm looking for a long eared hedgehoge. Hermiechinus auritus.
I would prefer to know what subspecies, and I really want a male :)

So if you read this blog, and you are able to ship to Denmark (or maybe I could come and get the hog, and make a trip out of it), or know someone who breeds these hogs, please let me know :)

Madonna

2009-09-13T02:21:00.000-07:00

So this is our little girl Madonna :)

As you might be able to see at the two pictures above, she's quite the cheeky type :)
I have her and her mom MiniPiv suspected of bullying Madonnas dad Christian... He's a bit shy these days, but he's also great with both the girls, so he's just going to stay with them :)

Someone bit her ear. I think it's her mom. Madonna is not that bad at stealing food from her parents, not her mom anyway. Sometimes she tries taking food from Christian, and he just turns away from her, where Mini might get mad. Or maybe she bit Mini while trying to get some milk...

And here you can see her beige spot. It's the only spot she has.

We are keeping her, and I have a few mutations in mind when we are getting a male for her, at one point:
Homo chocolate ebony or dark homo tan ebony. And it would be cool if were TOV.
Homo brown velvet
Hetero brown velvet (dark)
Very light std. grey (like Toby)

I'm not sure how easy these mutations are to get a hold of in DK, so we might look ind Sweden, Norway, Germany or The Netherlands.

Oh yeah, and Donna is 1 month and 3 days old on these pics :)

Welcome to Furrytails

2009-08-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Thought I'de make an english blog about Furrytails.
I'm breeding chinchillas. Actually both me and my boyfriend breed them, but mostly me :)

At this point we only have one breeding pair.
The male of our first pair passed away a few weeks back.

Our breeding pair contains Turbo Chins Christian. An all black ebony male:

And Furrytails' Nebri (we call her MiniPiv on a daily basis) A Pink White poss. TOV female:

The 9. august 2009 Mini and Christian got a beautiful little Pink White Ebony girl. Furrytails' Madonna.
At first the plan was to sell this little girl, but there's just something about her. So we are going to keep her :)
The plan is to find a light grey, homo chocolate ebony (or dark tan homo), homo brown velvet or a homo TOV chocolate male for her.

And the we have the other animals :)
Furrytails' GalaThea and Furrytails's Fnug.
They are from our first litter, and they are sisters.It's Thea at the top, and Fnug at the bottom.
There's something wrong with Fnug. We are not quite sure what. She was very small when she was born, and she's always been kinda weird compared to other chinchillas.
Some times i fear she's dead, because she dosen't wake up when we touch her. We need to pick her up, before she reacts. Then she gets all confused, and just want to go back into her cage ^_^
She also have some other weird things she do. And she's a furbiter. I don't know why or when it started.
Thea, on the other hand, is a strong willed chinchilla. She wants to fight all the other chins if given the chance, but she's very kind to Fnug.

Then we have Mini, Fnug and Theas mum, Silver Streak's Mystique

She's a silver mosaic poss. ebony.

The last animal we have is Toby.
He's a beautiful light grey male. At the moment he lives with one of my friends, but I'm going to get him home soon - I hope ;)
He dosen't have a pedegree so we are not going to breed him. And he's also too big in our opinion.

And then a bit about why and how we breed :)
I got my first chin back in 1997. He died about 14 days ago.
But in 2004 I got Mystique, and her and Bisse became a pair.
In 2005 they got their first litter (Fnug and Thea), and we officially started breeding.
We didn't care much for the thendensy in chinchilla breeding, where people wanted "brick" animals. Or as they like to call them - baby faced. And we didn't like how big they were getting either.
We think it's a problem that the animals look so different from the wild chinchilla, because the animals have only been domesticated for a little under 100 years.
The chinchilla shows don't help much. Over here they are judged kinda like fur animals. There is some logic behind why a fur breeder would like an animal that looks like a brick, but now why a pet should look like that.
So we set the goal that we wanted pear shaped animals, between 500 and 700 grams.

We do not think that our way is the only right way. We just think that the chinchilla world needs both types of animals, because only breeding in one direction will result in health problems at one point (just look at very big dog breeds).

Other than that, we try to get as social and healthy animals as possible.
The avrage lifespan of a chinchilla is down to 8-10 years because of inbreeding. Some do get older, but not at many we could hope.

I know that we do things different that some other places in the world, but that's just the way it is over here, and I prefer the way we do things, to a great deal of other ways.
In the end, it must be about doing what's right for the animal and you.