Birth Date:  9-1-2001

Mother: (LOO - FJ178) (Standard Grey)
Father:  (LOO - MJ417)  (Standard Grey)

Mother's Mother:  (LOO - FF261)
Mother's Father:  (LOO - ME397)

Father's Mother:  (LOO - FE28)
Father's Father:  (LOO - FE48)

Adopted on:  6-28-2003
Adopted from:  "1WYO" - Wyoming

Babies:

Beaux - Black Velvet Male - birth wt. 55 gms
Rozzie - Pink White Female - birth wt. 60 gms
Curran - Standard Grey Male - birth wt. 64 gms

Date Died:  6-29-2008

Cause of Death:

I went to go check on the chins after maybe 45 minutes of letting them sleep.  It was about 11 am.  Arwen had blood on her face and she wasn't moving!  I picked her up and found that she had passed away and that she had hemorrhaged and probably bled to death.  She was pregnant with three babies and was maybe two weeks away from giving birth.  There was quite a bit of blood but it wasn't all over the cage or anything.  I think she may have just died where she was laying.   It was so quick.  I'm pretty sure that she was not in labor or delivering the kits, but I'm not 100% positive about what happened.

We don't know what went wrong, but something caused the bleeding.   There was no indication that anything was wrong previously.  It was just one of those things that can happen in late pregnancy.  I haven't been able to find a cause for the bleeding.

I was absolutely heartsick over this for weeks and just couldn't write this until now (8-17-2008).  It is shocking how a perfectly healthy chinchilla can die of something like this.  All my chinchillas are very special to me.   Arwen will be missed.  I had her mate Sparky by himself because he started acting aggressive the day after she passed away.  It always amazes me how chinchillas have such a broad range of behavior when they have lost a cagemate.  Sometimes the chin will appear to be depressed and sometimes the chin will react with rage upon losing a mate.

All I can really say is that I wish that somehow I would have known that something was wrong with Arwen so that I could have done something to help her.   Losing a chin is always hard.  Losing a mother chin is much harder for me.   I put her in the position that she could become pregnant, afterall.  We lost her and her babies.  She was a very good mother to her kits and I know that if things would have worked out she would be loving her little ones and caring for them better than any other chin mother ever has.

Goodbye, Arwen.  I love you!