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Evaluating and Pairing your Animals
Everyone wants to breed for the best chinchillas possible. It makes since that you will need good quality breeding stock, however even the best animals if not paired correctly may not give you top quality babies. No matter where you are in your breeding program if you haven’t taken the time to carefully pair your chinchillas you may be in for a big surprise. Just by moving around your females you may be able to improve the quality of the chinchillas your herd produces.
The first step to pairing your chinchillas is to evaluate each animal as if you are looking at it for the first time. The best situation is to line your animals up side by side so that you can see which animals hold the best characteristics in your herd. Most people don’t have the cage space to do this so you will have to adapt to judging one chinchilla at a time.
Its best to evaluate your chinchillas under daylight bulbs set about 28 inches above a table covered in white. If you do not have access to these your next best choice would be sunlight. Go down the list of the following criteria and be very strict in your grading. Give your chinchilla a mark in each area depending on its strengths and weaknesses. Use A, B, & C. Give your chinchilla an A in an area if it is what you would consider outstanding. B would be what you would consider average (it’s not perfect but it’s not exactly bad either). C would be for an area that really needs improvement. You can use + and – as well to more accurately judge your chinchillas’ qualities.
Hopefully you already have an idea of what the ideal chinchilla looks like, but if not here are a few pointers.
Note: The photos I use for A examples still have room for improvement. These are by no means the absolute top quality in each category, but they are good enough to help you get a better idea of what to look for.
BUILD
Body-You want chinchillas that are blocky. When you look down at them from above, the shoulder area should be as wide (or about as wide) as the hip area. Imagine drawing an outline of your chinchilla. If your chinchilla’s outline would closely represent a rectangle give it an A. If its pretty close but could use some improvement give it a B. It its more like a triangle it would be a C.
 
Face-You want chinchillas that have small noses instead of the rat look. This is best determined by viewing your chinchilla’s profile. Notice the distance from the nose to the eyes in relation to the distance from the eyes to the top of the head. If it’s only about half the distance from nose to eyes as it is eyes to top of the head give it an A. If it’s a little more than half give it a B. If your chinchilla has a really long nose, give it a C.
 
Head and neck-You want chinchillas with thick necks. Little to no dip in the neck area behind the head. A nice distance across the top of the head from ear to ear. If your chinchilla has no neck or bulges at the neck give it an A. If it’s a big neck but could use a little more size give it a B. If the neck dips in or gets smaller give it a C.
 
Size-This is a pretty easy area to look for…Bigger is better.
FUR
Density-You want chinchillas with a lot of fur. Blow into the fur and notice how much skin you can see. Hopefully it’s little to none. Stop blowing and notice how fast the hair bounces back. You should have a hard time seeing where you blew. If you can only see a pin-head size amount of skin or no skin at all when you blow into your chinchilla and the fur bounces back up give your chinchilla an A. It you can see a little more skin but the fur comes back up, give it a B. If you are able to see a quarter of an inch or more skin your chinchilla gets a C. Also, the fur should stand up all over the body. Notice the neck and the hips especially because these are the areas where fur is prone to lay down.
 
Finish- This is the overall appearance of the animal. When you look across the fur of your animal you shouldn’t be able to see any swirls or breaks. The fur shouldn’t look wooly. Your chinchilla’s fur should be flawless.
COLOR
With so many new combinations of mutations it can get confusing as to what to look for in color. I suggest picking one or two mutations to breed for at first and study the ideal color and veiling for that mutation. Later you can add new colors as you learn more about them. For the purpose of this article I will very lightly touch on color.
-Standards, Black Velvets, and Ebonies have a tendency to show reddish tints. These are not desirable.
-White bellied mutations should have bright, white fur. Darker fur on the belly of a mutation that is supposed to be white is not good. The side fur should meet the white belly fur in a somewhat straight line.
This is by no means a complete list of what to look for in color so please do some research into what is desirable for the colors you are breeding.
Now you have a better idea of the quality of animals in your herd. Chinchillas that received mostly A’s are your best quality chinchillas. Animals with got mostly C’s should be sold or kept as pets and replaced with better breeding quality. Start by pairing your best animals with your best animals. Your top rated male should be paired with your top rated female(s). After those pairs have been decided look at the strengths and weaknesses of the chinchillas you have left. Try to pair them so that one mate may be able to strengthen the weakness of another. Don’t pair together two chinchillas that are weak in the same area.
Keep in mind the areas that are most needing improvement in your herd so that you will know what to look for when you buy more animals. Once your new pairs begin to have babies its important to watch them grow so you can evaluate them. You’ll never know what quality you are breeding for if you sell every kit at weaning age. Your kits will be the ultimate test of your ability to pair your chinchillas. The majority of the babies should be as good as or better than their parents. Each pair will have its share of lesser quality, however if the majority of the kits born to a pair are not what you expected break up the pair and evaluate your animals again. I hope this has helped you to better see your herd quality and develop a plan for herd improvement.
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