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[IkiKolohe]

Aloha!

I was drooling over chinchilla images on google and ran across this one... It literally jumped out of the page at me!!  So very unique!  Can I get your opinion?  What mutation would this be?

Mahalo!
Tina

[GrayRodent]

Although you can never know for sure without seeing the pedigree I'm going to guess this is a sapphire. It's about the right color but its fur quality is also terrible which is a known trait of the sapphire mutation that is not well developed.

[IkiKolohe]

Although you can never know for sure without seeing the pedigree I'm going to guess this is a sapphire. It's about the right color but its fur quality is also terrible which is a known trait of the sapphire mutation that is not well developed.

Mahalo for pointing out you never really know without a pedigree, but I'm just attempting to train my eye for things like color, quality and such.  You have been awesome in answering my plethora of questions!  Mahalo again!

So back to this photo... Is it fairly normal for a sapphire to have the dark arms and legs with the lighter gray tummy??  I think that's what stood out for me - the darker shade on hands and feet and even, around his neck looks darker as well.  It's not often I've seen the "tummy" side of a chinchilla.  Joey is a Sc so I guess it's possible (if I decide to breed her), I could see a sapphire kit, depending on what the male is - he'd have to be at least a Sc or Sapphire himself as well, correct?  I believe the sapphire gene is recessive so the kit would have to get 1 from each parent to actually show that color?  I picked her more for the RPAc genes.     Boy, don't I sound like an expert scientist, talking about genes, recessive and everything!  I'll have to do some more searches on Google for sapphire chinchilla images since it is in my starting bloodline.

I hate being so "secluded" here - I'm hoping to plan a trip to the mainland next year to coincide with a show I can attend!  I'm sure it's easier to learn the mutations and stuff in person rather than through photos.  There is a DOWNSIDE to living here for sure!

Again, mahalo for your continued help and patience as I stumble through this learning time!  I hope someday I can help mentor a new owner myself - there is so much to learn if you really want to understand these furry, fluffy balls of attitude, that's for sure!  I think I've gone through every single post in the forums now - other than the last breeder one, that I'm still stumbling through as I have time!  The forums look to have been really active in years past!  Mahalo for keeping the resource open and monitoring the few posts from me and a couple other new chin parents!

A hui hou (until we "meet/speak" again - hope you don't mind a spattering of Hawaiian!),
Tina

[GrayRodent]

Honestly I don't know. I wish I could go to chinchilla shows that have a lot of different colors and see them in person. I'm in kind of a secluded situation myself living where it's a bit warm for large scale operations.

My first thought on this one is the fur is extremely short. The fur closest to the skin is dark and then the tips are light on the belly. So I'm guessing it's just the tips are very shallow because of the shortness of the fur so its legs are pulled forward exposing those deeper colors. I would expect in a normal stance it would not be near as noticeable. Although the forelimb colors on my own standard vary quite a bit.

So if you can go to chinchilla shows that would be ideal. If I remember right sapphire and RPA are recessive so both sire and dam must be Sc and RPAc.

If you hang around here for any length of time you'll be mentoring people and learning about all kind of crazy things that can go wrong with pet owners and chinchillas. The forums are active and it comes and goes in waves. I strongly recommend Empress Chinchilla and MBCA for more information. They are good communities and resources for breeders.

http://www.mutationchinchillas.com/index.html
http://empresschinchilla.org/

‘A‘ole pilikia (Your'e welcome (If I googled that right!))

[IkiKolohe]

Honestly I don't know. I wish I could go to chinchilla shows that have a lot of different colors and see them in person. I'm in kind of a secluded situation myself living where it's a bit warm for large scale operations.

My first thought on this one is the fur is extremely short. The fur closest to the skin is dark and then the tips are light on the belly. So I'm guessing it's just the tips are very shallow because of the shortness of the fur so its legs are pulled forward exposing those deeper colors. I would expect in a normal stance it would not be near as noticeable. Although the forelimb colors on my own standard vary quite a bit.

So if you can go to chinchilla shows that would be ideal. If I remember right sapphire and RPA are recessive so both sire and dam must be Sc and RPAc.

GRRR, my 4-month old kitten just walked across my keyboard and "reloaded" this page - I had JUST finished the last line of my reply.  He erased it all!  It's a good thing he's CUTE!

ok, so ya, I believe you are correct, both are recessive.  If I decide to breed, its the RPA I'm interested in though.  At this point in my understanding, I think I'd want a nice blocky Std RPAc (or RPA if I'm feeling rich) male.  He would work with both my girls... Joey is the Sc RPAc Std, and Kira is a dark ebony.  But if I get to that point, I will definitely be contacting multiple breeders for their suggestions in what type of male would be best - that would work with both girls (though, by that time, I could probably split them and each get their own boyfriend), but thats so far down the road, I'm just trying to NOT think too much about it!

If you hang around here for any length of time you'll be mentoring people and learning about all kind of crazy things that can go wrong with pet owners and chinchillas. The forums are active and it comes and goes in waves. I strongly recommend Empress Chinchilla and MBCA for more information. They are good communities and resources for breeders.

http://www.mutationchinchillas.com/index.html
http://empresschinchilla.org/

I've already been in contact with Maxine - the general manager of ECBC.  She sent me their latest newsletter and it was very informative!  If I decide to breed, I absolutely will join both.  When I raised and showed English bulldogs, I was a member of their chapter of the National English Bulldog non-profit; when my parents raised emus, we were very involved with the American Emu Association and our local state and county chapters. My opinion is you can't be on-top of everything you need to know by yourself, and these resources are just too good to pass up!  Since moving to Hawaii, my parents are planting Cacao mostly on their farm and they've already joined and are involved with the local Cacao Association.  Their goal is to have Hawaiian Chocolate being as well known as "Kona Coffee".  Since its such a new industry, everyone involved really works together and learns together about every aspect of growing and processing cacao.

‘A‘ole pilikia (Your'e welcome (If I googled that right!))

Hey, you taught me a new one!  According to one of my resources, it translates to "no problem" which is basically a "you're welcome"!  I've only been here 6 years, so I'm still learning the phrases and stuff that are used so much here.  Things like "Aloha" and "Mahalo" just come to me now - I get weird looks when I'm on the mainland and say them.  The biggest roadblock is pronunciation.  Basically there are no silent letters in Hawaiian - if you just read/say it like it looks like, you are probably going to be really close.  If you try to pronounce it  using English silent letter/syllable rules, you'll be way off!  Nothing amuses a local more, than a haole mispronouncing something wrong.  Most are goodnatured about it, and appreciate that you are trying to use their local language.

[BLS Chins]

The pic is a tov ebony white

[GrayRodent]

Awesome. Thanks. I trust your judgement way more than my wild guessing! Is the leg coloring just the fur underneath or is the fur dark like that to the tips do you know?

[BLS Chins]

The darker spots on the legs are paw stripes (which are common in TOV). That along with a darker face confirms the TOV gene. The fact that you can see silver tipping all the way around with no change on the belly shows the ebony. The white part is obvious.

[IkiKolohe]

Mahalo!!!!   I sure wish I could see his tail.  Venture to guess what it looks like?

You guys are awesome!!

[BLS Chins]

Without a pic theres no way to know what the tail looks like. Whites can vary greatly in their spots and color, so it could be white, silver or black

[IkiKolohe]

Aloha!

The more I read about the mutations, the more I can see I have a LONG way to go in understanding them!!

Do you know of any print type book available?  I'd love to find a website that has a page for each mutation with tons of pictures on each one. I found 1 site that started that but only had 1 photos as example - course I forgot to bookmark it so haven't been able to return to read it again.

Mahalo again for your reply and help in trying to get it figured out!!

A hui hou,
Tina

[BLS Chins]

The chinchilla cross calculator is a great way to learn about genetics.

http://sunsetchinchillas.com/Colors.shtml
This has a lot of pics and descriptions with them. There arent many pics of certain colors due to the fact that many breeders dont breed for them. You can breed for a tov white blue diamond wrap... but that doesnt mean you should. So there arent any pics of those. There are a lot of ethics and rules when breeding if you are doing it correctly