Rivendell Chinchillas

Should I breed my chinchilla?

To breed or not to breed, that is the question!
The great debate! Should you breed your chins? This question has been asked time and time again.
We will begin with a few reasons of why or why not to breed chins, then we can move on to the all abouts of doing so.   

Firstly, anyone who puts a male with a female, is a breeder. One litter, or one hundred, you are responsible for those animals and their offspring.       

Reason's To Breed Reason's Not to Breed
To help improve the breed      So "Fluffy" can have some babies
To offer a high quality chinchilla for either the pet, show, or pelting society   Because I have two of them, why not?
For the love of and in the efforts to create the "perfect" animal    My friend wanted one so I got a male/female for mine
  To make money
  To see how many different colored chinchillas you can get
 

The pet store doesn't have a good supply
  Babies are fun!
  I want my kids to see the miracle of life
  The two chins I got love each other and I don't want to separate them
  I just want one litter then they'll stop

 

Unfortunately, the list is bound to be a little lopsided.
Let's be honest here, I can't name many people who actually make money raising chinchillas.
If you agree to anything in the right hand column, please read on and reconsider.
I hear quite often, "they are only for pets", but this is not an excuse to knowingly breed low quality animals with possible health problems.

What is a BREEDING QUALITY animal?

A breeding quality animal is one that meets the breed's standard. Standards include things such as coat color, clarity, density and texture, as well as temperament and confirmation. But above all of these things a breeding quality animal needs to be healthy, and not the "on meds" kind of healthy either. Ask yourself is there a high chance that this animals offspring may have serious health problems such as malocclusion or fur biting? If you answer yes, please don't do it. If you don't have a pedigree on your animals then you can't honestly answer. Be sure to know where your animals are from and any problems they might have in life. Why would you want to create heartache when someone has to watch their pet go through pain? Why would you want to create an animal that has to go through the suffering?

Breeding quality chinchillas should also have a pedigree, the more extensive the better. I've heard, "they raise too many to keep records", what you should hear is they don't care enough to keep records. If you don't keep records how do you know if that is a good mating? How do you know if a certain chin always throws sick or poor quality babies? You don't!

If you want to breed your chins you should take them to a show or have a judge or other highly experience breeder look them over and judge their quality. It usually best to have this done by someone who shows lots of chins and places well if they are not a judge. Remember even a great breeder may be a little biased in their opinions!

Can't you make good money breeding chins?

If you're even asking this question you're in the wrong state of mind. Most small chinchilla breeders are lucky to break even, and if you notice most pick up side "jobs" like selling supplies to help cover the costs. Good breeders breed for the love and advancement of the breed. If you think you can sell them to local pet shops you will probably soon find that the demand will run out when everyone on the block has one. Then you can ask some pet stores how much they pay for a chin, usually it's around $25- $40. With two litters a year, figuring two kits per litter, that's only $200.00 a year per pair, subtract that from what you'll pay in food and bedding and you're already in the hole. It's said that to earn an income breeding you need to have at least 300 breeding females.

My friend's want one!

As good of an excuse as this sounds remember that you can't just have one litter and "turn them off". You'll have to keep the two chins in separate cages to prevent re-mating. No big deal because your other friend wants one too? Eventually you will run out of friends who need a chinchilla. There are lots and lots of pet quality chins who need rescued and you can usually get them very reasonable from a breeder who just wants to see them go to a good home. Please remember chinchillas don't do well under anesthesia so this increases the complications of a spay or neuter. Please don't plan on this as a two litters later back up plan.

For more information on setting up you breeding program check out the breeding page.

 

 

E-mail Me