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[Kristi@StoneFamFarmstead]

More questions from me, the owner of no chinchillas. 

Quick explanation---a friend is wanting to rehome her chinchilla breeding stock, but she has no information on the lines. They are healthy chins, and IIRC, they are all female from the same lines. The male she would be obtaining for me would not be from the same lines as her girls, I'm told. She is not selling them to me, mind you, but wanting to rehome them because she has over 100 animals (she has a petting zoo out here) and while she takes good care of her animals, her zoo is getting more active and she needs the time to focus on her outdoor animals.

I'm a pedigree/registering kind of person and I would like to know if it would ever be possible to eventually pedigree any of the babies from any of these chins? I'm sure I can't really register them anywhere right now, but I want to keep records of the lines for my own purposes and for anyone else who might want to have them for something beyond pet purposes. I do trust my friend, but I would feel much better knowing exactly where the chins came from and being able to provide that kind of information to those who purchase babies from me.

If I keep meticulous lines for a few generations, watch for any health issues and poor qualities (and not breed those ones, etc.), would I then be able to eventually get them papered at all? What is the procedure for beginning a pedigree? I can't imagine that EVERY herd was started with purchases from reputable breeders and papered chins, it just doesn't really make sense that without some work, we couldn't have a decent herd with decent records. Has anyone ever done this?

Please be gentle if you disagree strongly with this. In my reading, I'm seeing that it's uber controversial and very warned against to even breed chins without pedigrees, and I get that. But in order for me to provide a good home to these 5 chins, they need to be doing something on our farm or it just can't happen, and they do need a final home to be. I have the space and means to do it, but I need something back, even if it's just babies a few times per year. Being a keeper of goats, rabbits, chickens, dogs, and cats, I do try my best to study about each species and make sure I'm doing all I can to provide good homes and care to each of my 16 animals, so I'm not just all about making money. However, I do need my animals to be working animals, even if just to have babies and enjoy the rest of their lives hopping around their cages and being cute.

Thanks in advance.

[BLS Chins]

You should never breed a chin with an unknown back round. No pedigree means no breeding. There are many reasons for this. There are many many genetic problems that we try hard to bed out of lines. Sine things are obvious (small size, poor confirmation, bad mothering) but other things may not adore up till the chin is 5+ years old (like malo, kidney failure, seizures, heart murmurs....) by the time one kit comes back with those issues you have many many others that you sold/have breed and spread those bad genetics. The parents may look fine but that dies not mean they don't carry those problems.
Getting good quality pedigreed chins is easy to find. Go to a show and learn the basics of breeding and quality. The fact that three last has no information on where she bought the chins from shows that she was breeding fit cute colors and babies.... The very definition of a byb. The chins should be separated and go to pet homes unless you are able to track them back to a reputable breeder and get the info on them

[Kristi@StoneFamFarmstead]

Alright, thank you for your input.

I'm not really interested in buying pedigreed chins, but rather, making these work for me. The only way it was going to work for me to give these girls a home is if I can sell some of them and their babies to offset the costs that I would be incurring by taking them on. I have some thinking to do.

Thanks again.

[Kristi@StoneFamFarmstead]

By the way, I don't know if this matters at all, but these chins are various ages, most over 5 years old, I think. There is one pair living in the same cage, a mom and a daughter, and there there are 3 others, which I think are over 5 years. Not sure about mom and daughter, though. No known diseases, but I wouldn't mind having them checked out by a vet when I get them. I wouldn't want to breed them until I knew they were not suffering any issues for sure. They look healthy otherwise, but this would be a precaution.

[BLS Chins]

Having a vet check them out just means they look healthy. It does not tell you if they carry or will develop issues later today are genetic. If you think the cost if their care may be to much then breeding is not for you. Vet bills for breeding are huge. Emergencies at 2am.... c-sections.... hand feeding every 2 hours.... if everything goes great you might break even but there isn't any money to be made. Chins honestly don't cost that much to maintain. If you buy in bulk. I feed and care for about 50 chins for about $70 a month. With just a few chins and shipping proper your pets wouldn't cost that much. Get one or two and have some happy pets

[SydChilla]

No, this is not a good idea.

A pet owner has no need for a pedigree, and a knowledgeable breeder won't buy them if they don't recognize the lines. If you show the chins, you might have more to advertise to pet owners than just their cuteness, but winning ribbons isn't enough to justify breeding them. I caution you strongly against breeding unpedigreed chins, you can't create something from nothing in this instance, because the history is what matters.

How much would it suck to have a customer come to you saying their vet diagnosed a genetic defect that killed their chin? That's a whole big can of worms you definitely don't want to open, and that is the risk you run breeding unpedigreed chins. 

If you really want to breed them, interrogate the owner for pedigrees. If she can't produce any verifiable info, run away.

[dozla]

I total agree with what people are saying here... I had a perfectly healthy 5 year old chinchilla whom I bred with what seemed a perfectly healthy 2 year old.. this resulted in quads.. one is which died at birth, not only did I have to take alot of time off work to help feed them, but i also paid a lot of money on tests and had to put the one I kept to sleep at 9 months old  due to malocclusion.. which was genetic. I had never even heard of this before he had got this, initially he was treated for an eye infection before he had a CT scan and they discovered  his teeth roots had grown into his eyes! The only signs of this agonising disease was a very slight eye discharge and weight loss.
My point is unless you have a pedigree line you won't know if they have genetic malo in there, breeders are trying to get rid of all the horrible things out there and back yard breeders (like I classed myself as) are messing up the hard work they do to protect the bred.

No pedigree lines means pet only unless you don't care if you bred an animal which will potentially die from an early painful death