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Author: Amanda Dean
of Fuzzy Chins

A Very Special Love Story

Who says that a good woman can’t change a man? Roo, our one year old reverse mosaic male was always sweet to myself and my fiance, but to our other male chinchillas (or any other animal for that matter), Roo made it known he was not happy with their presence (he had been and insisted on continuing to be #1 chin).

We introduced Roo to Sydney, our one year old Standard gray female in Feburary 2003. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it didn’t take long for Roo to become smitten with Sydney. Roo and Sydney were inseparable, granted Roo still needed to be put in his place once in awhile, which Sydney was glad to do, but the love birds grew closer everyday they were together. My fiance suspected in March 2003 that Roo and Sydney had mated, but we never found a plug so we couldn’t say for sure. We didn’t see any major changes in either Sydney or Roo’s behavior the first two months, except maybe Sydney had a few more mood swings.


Roo and Sydney Kissing
By the third month of her pregnancy, I started to notice Roo taking care of Sydney a little differently. Some mornings I would wake up to find Sydney at the front of the cage on her hind legs and Roo would have his ear tightly pressed to her belly. Usually when Roo hears me coming, he is begging for attention, but his interest in me started to wane and I couldn’t pull him away from Sydney’s belly.
At this point, I still didn’t want to get my hopes up that Sydney was pregnant. I had not felt any baby movement nor had a seen any signs of life in her belly. Roo obviously knew more than I wanted to admit too. In retrospect, I think he was listening and feeling his babies.

As the days and weeks continued to pass, I saw significant weight gain in Sydney (She weighed around 540 grams before she was pregnant and a few days before she gave birth she was up to 724 grams). She started to sleep on her side more and finally I saw babies kicking and moving. We had a very accurate idea of her due date so we continued to monitor her as we approached July. Roo too, closely monitored her and took extra special care of her. When she would lay on her side, he would groom her, especially her face and belly. He was very attentive and very protective of Sydney. Sydney was not always receptive to all the attention (those hormones were kicking in), but for the most part, I think she appreciated the extra love.

Being that this was our first litter, my fiance and I decided to separate Sydney and Roo two weeks before her due date. She was in a multi-level home with Roo and we didn’t want to run any risk to her or the babies. Immediately after their separation, we learned how close Sydney and Roo are. Even though their cages were side by side, both of them nearly stopped drinking and eating. We had to put them back together a few days later because they were dropping so much weight (Roo lost close to 60 grams and Sydney lost about 10 grams). The only thing they did when they were together was groom each other. Roo slept under Sydney as a pillow and I assume he could feel the babies kicking and moving. If we tried to separate them, both of them would throw temper tantrums, throwing chew toys around.

We had to separate the love birds a few days before Sydney’s due date. Sydney started drinking and eating more than I had ever seen her consume. Roo was still on his hunger strike and moped in his cage, pining for Sydney. Finally on Friday, July 11, 2003, Sydney delivered a healthy male standard gray (weighing in at 47 grams) named Wally at 10:30am. She then delivered at 12:20pm, a healthy female reverse mosaic (weighing in at 46 grams) named Maggie. Roo stayed as close as he could to Sydney the entire day, standing in the corner closest to her, staring at her and his new kits.
Wally, Standard gray male at 2 days old….Special delivery.


When the babies were two days old, we decided to introduce Roo to his children. Keeping a very close eye on Roo, we let him, Sydney, Wally and Maggie play in our chinchilla play area. Roo immediately ran to Sydney and groomed her. He then began to groom Maggie and Wally. The entire family was chatting to each other the entire night. Roo seemed to be in heaven. It’s hard to believe that Roo is the same chin that terrorized our other chins. Every night since then, we have let the family play together and Roo has begun to eat and drink normally again. He loves to be with Sydney and the kits.


Maggie, Reverse mosaic female at 2 days old
July 21st will be a glorious day when we can house the family together. I have no doubt that Roo will take extra special care of his new family. After all, he has been there for Sydney since the first day of her pregnancy, he got to feel and hear his children grow and develop and now he can be the doting father and mate. My rugged, sometimes selfish bachelor chinchilla has been metamorphisized into an unselfish, very loving attentive family man….all because of a special woman’s love.


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