A female chinchilla gets in heat at the age of four to six months. Starting with this she is able to get pregnant. After that all 28 - 35 days she will get in heat, but sometimes the heat does not take place. The heat leasts about 3-4 days. You can see the heat by looking at the vagina. During the heat the vagina is a little bit opened, normally it is totaly closed. If the female chinchilla is in the heat the copulation can happen. Normally it happens at night. The male and the female are running through the cage, hunting each other until the copulation starts. The copulation can be several times a night. After the copulation the female secretes a clot, which you can maybe find the next morning in the wood-shavings. But mostly the clot is eaten up by the female chinchilla. Pregnancy lasts about 111 days, which is a very long period of time for a rodent. During this time the chinchilla needs a lot of silence. You also have to take care that she gets enough calcium (e.g. with calcium-tablets). At the end of the pregnancy period chinchillas often sleep lying on the side, which is absolutely normal. Birth normally starts in the night or early in the morning. Here you can see a mother with her newborn babies. The babies have been just about 10 minutes old on this picture. The birth starts with labour. The chin groans, writhes with pain and cries. Normally this phase lasts only about half an hour. Afterwards the mother-chin puts ot the babies very carefully with her teeth. Depending on how many babies she´s going to get this can last up to several hours. After finishing birth the mother-chin eats up the placenta and starts taking care of her babies. Normally it is not necessary for us to help the mother-chin. But there can appear some problems so that you have to make the obstetrician. It can e.g. happen that a baby is too big and gets stuck up in the vagina or a baby has already died in the uterus and can not be born. In this cases you have to consult a vet immediately!!! If there are more babies it can happen, that the mother-chin is engaged with the birth and for this not able to take care for the already born babies. In this case the newborn, wet baby could die of cooling out. In this case you should take the baby out of the cage and warm it up in your hands. If it is able to stand alone you should give it back to its mommy. This baby is just about 30 minutes old and not completely dried by its mommy. But it already has opened eyes and crawls through the cage Sometimes it can happen, that a newborn-baby cannot open its eyes. In this case you should carefully put a little bit eye-ointment on the eyelids and carefully try to open them. This baby is one week old and has already doubled its birth-weight. Its very curious about everything and tries to explore everything Yes, and this little guy is just four weeks old and really loves his pellets as you can see on this photo