Pewrry, I have a question about how you kept them prior to brumation. Do you keep your chucks on sand, by chance? You know that I also got a group of chucks from that same area, but as rescues. One large male was fine for awhile, but started dropping weight and when we did an xray, his belly was packed with sand. I tubed him for awhile, then fed him high fiber to help it all pass, such as finch seed and the usual greens. Within a few weeks, he resumed self feeding and has been fine since, and I do not keep any of them on sand. While fasting will help them pass the food stuff that they have in their guts, it will not help pass sand. That is much more tricky and can be deadly if they do down for brumation with a great deal of sand in their intestines.

One other thing also comes to mind. Did these chucks come in with red mites? If so, they very well could have been infected with malaria. One of my box canyon females started careening downhill for no apparent reason during a cooling period, though not a full brumation. I don't brumate either, but they were housed in an unheated room with enough light to heat them, but they did sleep quite a bit regardless. Blood work showed two types of malaria that are carried by red mites. Because there were no other obvious reasons for her decline, we felt that the malaria was the culprit and since there is no cure as of yet, there was nothing that I could do for her but hospice her, and she died. I am trying to get a dialog going about this disease. It infects chucks and scleporous that we know of so far. One guy, Joseph Schall is studying the disease and has tried to come up with a cure, but has not had luck as of yet.

I am sorry about your losses. Chucks really are a mystery. I am with Maureen though. I don't think they need to be brumated to breed. I have several of her chuckletts here as proof! lol They just need to feel comfortable enough to do the deeed, I think, and that can be a challenge with wc chucks.

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