What is healthy chinchilla weight?

[mattandhis3degus]

My chinchillas are in perfect health but having bought a new digital scale recently I thought I would weigh all my animals and monitor their weight over time.

These are the weights of my animals:

Degus:	14th Nov 16	22nd Nov 16	7th Dec 16	8th Jan 17	23rd Jan 17	4th Feb 17	25th Apr 17	28th May 17	24th Sep 17
Humphrey	265g	269g	266g	257g	260g	265g	260g	260g	282g
Charlie	212g	223g	210g	229g	227g	229g	234g	223g	236g
Sammy	145g	172g	192g	211g	229g	244g	258g	267g	272g
Chinchillas:
Violet		741g	740g	712g	712g	722g	639g	621g	630g
Rosie		768g	769g	757g	773g	769g	748g	723g	702g
Snowy		775g	786g	758g	759g	756g	799g	822g	827g
Me: approx.		70,000g							78,000g

[natnat899]

It's difficult to determine what a healthy chinchilla weight is, they can vary so much. Peanut is 820g and pickle is 560g. The general consensus is about 450g+ some chinchillas being 1000g! Below is a link to chinformative discussing weight (the posts are years old though):

www.chinformative.com/topic/3438-weight/#comment-30389

[winic1]

Wouldn't the most important thing be that they don't change weight much in either direction, but especially losing weight? Assuming they are all full grown, of course. A young one should keep gaining weight steadily until it slows down and settles at its adult size, then hold pretty much steady.

[mattandhis3degus]

Yes, probably. I'm going to weigh them once a week or so from now on so I will see how their weight varies.

[randomname]

hey mattandhis3degus did you manage to get them weighed weekly? Did your data show anything interesting? Be great to have an update if you have one?

[mattandhis3degus]

Hi, I don't get round to it on a weekly basis unfortunately but I have been doing so every two or three weeks or so. What's interesting is just how consistent the chinchillas weights are. Sometimes over a couple of weeks their weight has changed by no more than a single gram or even remained exactly the same. Their weight dropped slightly between December and January, perhaps due to the stress of travel over Christmas.

Sammy the Degu increased in weight by 50% in the two months between 14th Nov and 8th Jan. I reckon he's about fully grown now.

[darthchinchi]

They look fine to me. My animals way between 500-700g
As I target this writhe ratino I do not see animals above the 700g
Other breeders target other sizes and see different sizes. As a rule of thumb the bigger the parent, the bigger the kit. So if you know the weight of the parents you have a good indicator of where your animals will end out. There's still animals that differ though either getting crazy big compared to parents or very small.

I do not weigh my animals on a regular basis. I just look at them and handle them. Weight can be an indicator of illness. If you know your animals you can pick up on small variations in behaviour just as effective as using a scale imo

[Deleted]

Of all my chinchillas, weights vary widely. Adult range from 500 to 1,200 gram. These are all healthy adults. What matters is that the weight does not fluctuate in either direction.
I aim with my breeding animals to be a minimum of 650, as the pelvis on animals below this seems smaller thus less capable of birthing. but if not a breeding animal-this is irrelevant. I do not aim for size or "bigger the better" attitude. Only that should the adult be large (my 1.2 kilo female for example) that she holds the weight presenting healthily and not appearing overweight (fat hanging down, rather than holding above the body)
I also find you cannot judge a kits end weight based on its parents-but that of its whole linage trend.
I do weigh them all regularly, why not when I'm handling anyway! Some are rescues, thus I particularly make sure they are weighed regularly to ensure they are doing well.