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Before you start breeding consider what will become of the babies, you cant keep the males and females together if you you want to keep them or if you want to sell them you should only sell in 'same sex' pairs to stop in breeding. In-breeding can pass on bad genes and can cause babies to be born with defects not just in the first generation.
To sex your chipmunks tempt them up on to the side of the cage with a treat so you can see. The adult males penis is visible and in breeding seasons the scrotum will be enlarged. The distance between the anus and the genital area is greater in males than females. In the males it is about 1cm away but in the female it is touching. See bottom of page for pics.
Keep either a breeding pair or a group which should be 1 male to 2 females. Dont keep more males than females or they will fight over the females when they come into season.
The breeding seasons are march/april and july/aug, the female will be pregnant for 1month. When she comes into season you will be able to tell as she will chirp continuously.
Several males may compete for a female, and a male may mate with more than one female during one breeding season.
The signs that a female is pregnant is that her lower mammary glands enlarge slightly and after 20-25days the upper ones become more noticable and she will begin to look fatter too, she will remain active throughout the pregnancy but on the day of the birth she wont leave her nest apart from to get food and water.
The female will eat the placenta after the birth and any dead babies, this would be to get rid of the smell of blood so that predators wont smell it.
Once the mother starts to return to her usual routine you can then peak at the babies, depending on how tame your female is she may let you hold them without being worried at all. Chipmunks lose their fear of humans if handled frequently before they are weaned, but it is unwise to separate them from their mother at this time. We held ours everday from 1week old and our female wasnt worried by this at all and didnt even come over to see if they were ok as she trusted us with them. she carried on as normal and didnt neglect the babies at all as you can see from the photos on the babies page. I think you should be the judge of when to peek and hold the babies you have as differant chipmunks will take it differant ways and not all are as tame as ours, you know your own chipmunk.
Also please use the photos on the babies page to determine age as theres alot of photos on there to help you determine that.
Below Max pregnant and Mrs Dale Childs chipmunk, Fidget pregnant..
Male
Female
This photo is to show the babies 'Milk band' This is the white band around his tummy, this is a good way to tell that the babies are being fed and have a full tummy.
