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[Jasonred79]

Was wondering if Chinchilla's could cross breed with any type of rodent...
It'd be cool if they could, and the resulting hybrid is sterile... that would let Popsicle have a family, AND save me the cost (and save him the trauma) of neutering. Auto family planning!

[GrayRodent]

I'm not aware of it ever being done before. You'll have to find a rodent that has 64 diploid chromosomes/ 32 haploid if you want to think about trying. I know the guinea pig does but I've never heard of them producing offspring. Perhaps there are more options out there to try. Do beware because chinchillas don't always get along with other species.

[kageri]

Unlikely.  I've heard of lots of equine and some camelidae  (also includes alpaca and llama, look up the cama) but I've never heard of rodent crosses.  Most of the time a hybrid requires artificial insemination because the 2 species will not interbreed on their own.  They may even kill each other if left together to try it.  Size and shape then come in to play.  Overall it's just difficult to make happen.   I don't know if scientists figured it to be a pointless endeavor or if it's just not possible to cross rodents. 

Just matching the chromosomes is often not useful.  Many animals with different numbers of chromosomes breed and many species with the same chromosomes can't breed.  A mule is the result of 64 to 62 chromosomes resulting in an animal with an odd 63.  This is common with equine and fish crosses.  This results in sterile hybrids.  Having the same number of chromosomes does usually result in not so much a hybrid, which are generally considered to be only sterile offspring, but as either a new species or a subspecies if you are breeding to very close relatives. Camas, canis hybrids (wolf-dogs, coydogs...), and ligers (tiger x lion) are examples where the chromosomes do match and the animals are not sterile.  Although only one offspring from a liger has been produced and it was in very poor health unlike the ligers themselves which avoid several health issues the big cats normally suffer.  All these animals require some help to breed.  You can't just leave them together.  At minimum they will do nothing and at worst they will kill each other.  Breeding has to be controlled and often artificial insemination or even more complicated procedures are used.  Such as removing an egg from one species, a sperm from another species, putting them together in a lab, and then putting the fertilized egg back in the female or in a 3rd individual to grow.  It's not something where you pitch 2 species together and cross your fingers.

[kageri]

I joked a few days ago about crossing sheep with goats.  Apparently geep exist.  They have the largest chromosome difference I've seen of 54 to 60.  That may be why most are stillborn.  Seems much of the bovine family (sheep, goat, cattle, buffalo, yak...) can combine in various ways but most don't share the same chromosomes.  I do know beefalo (buffalo x cattle) are fertile.  Some use it as a tamer, easier to contain option of buffalolike meat.

[GrayRodent]

No ratchillas, chinnie pigs, standard grey squirrels, or chinniebaras, or chirbils? Too bad.

[Jasonred79]

hmm. Seem the closest thing is the cross between short tailed and long tailed chins, and even those can be sterile. Huh. (or so google claims)

I'm not absolutely certain about the not putting them together and letting them breed thing, cause Popsicle humps my arm now and then, surely a female rodent in heat would be more enticing... lol, then again what do rodents know of logic? lol.

Someone on this forum said their kid insisted their chin was a squabbit ie squirrel rabbit. haha.


I'm not too sure about how they split all these animals into families and such though... I mean, not looking at genetics, just from appearances, you take a husky, a german shepherd, a wolf, and a poodle together, and ask someone to pick the oddd one out, an uninformed person would say the poodle is the odd one out! Yet apparently the wolf is the furtherst genetically from the husky and german shepherd? Really? Weird.

[GrayRodent]

That would be the science of morphology which is based on Charles Darwin's theories of macroevolution which was established before we had things like genetics and radiometric dating and our present knowledge of the record of nature. What's even weirder to me is that people put so much stock in that.