Mating between Mini and Christian

7/11 Mini and Christian was out for a run, and mated several times.
We found 2 heat plugs, and hope to see kits 26/02 2010

First show

So I went to my first show this weekend, arranged by DCKF - Danish Chinchilla Pet Club.

Turbo Chins Christian got 80 points and a 3. place in his group (out of 4).

Furrytails Nebri aka Mini got 83 points and an 8. place out of 9 in her group. I'm surprised she didn't get a lot lower points than the other animals there, but 4 out of the 9 animals got 83 points.

All in all there were a little over 100 animals.

It was actually quite fun, and I'm thinking about going to the next one as well.
I'm especially proud of Mini because she's out of my own animals. She didn't take the whole ordeal too good though, so I'm not sure if I can take her to other shows.
I would love to show Furrytails Madonna at some point.

Update

So Madonna turned 12 this sunday, so I put her with Mystique.
At first Madonna didn't like the new cage much. Mystique, on the other hand, was thrilled that she got a little mate again.
MiniPiv (Madonnas mom) got a bit mad the first night, and made a lot of noise.
The next night she was quiet, but Christian (Madonnas dad) started acting all crazy. He was talking a lot, and just jumping around the cage like a nut. When I went to see what was going on, I could pet him a lot more than with Madonna in the cage. It seams he's very happy about the whole situation. No little brat is trying to climb his back any more :)

So they are all happy now, and I'm going to my first chinchilla show this weekend.
I'm taking Mini and Christian with me. Not a lot of animals I know, but I have to start some where :)

And I'm still on the look for a chocolate male for Madonna, but nobody seams to be breeding much chocolate at the moment.

Chinfo - Feeding

I'm thinking about writing some of the stuff down, normally done here in Denmark, because I know a lot of it is very different to how people in the US and UK do things.

I do not think that the other ways of doing things are wrong, I simply want to inform about differen ways of doing things :)

So let's start out with feeding:
There are a couple of different ways to do this. The most important way is that you feel good about the way you are feeding.
Remember to check the specific feed where you live. As far as I can understand, some types of feed we have are quite good, but the same feed in US can be very bad.

You need to bear in mind that the pellets we have are not made by looking at what the chinchilla eat in the wild, but made by furfarmers, to get animals that would thrive and get a nice fur. There is nothing wrong with this, but people have a tendensy to forget this, and think that some chinchilla pellets are the only right way to go, and they can never be improved.

Then we have to look at what the specific pellet is made for. If the pellet is made for farmers, it might not be the right pellet for you and your animal. In general they have a very high content of protein. This is good for females who are used for breeding, but it's not the best for the avrage pet chinchilla.

You need to find a pellet made for pet chinchillas. This could be some of VitaKrafts pellets.


Personally I'm very fond of VitaSpecial.
They have 3 different types of pellets. One for young animals, one for grown animals, and one for senior animals.
The biggest problem about these pellets is, that they are quite expensive.

It's also possible to get a some feeding products where a lot of different things have been mixed together.
For the most part, these products is something you should avoid. They do have some good parts, but they also contain a lot of not so good treats, like nuts and banana. Thes treats can be used, but should not be given in big amounts.

If you'r not happy about only using one type of pellets, it's okay to mix different types of pellets, as long as it's a good quality. Some animals will enjoy being able to choose between the different types of pellets.

Now you may have an idea about what to feed your pet chinchilla.

Let's look at how to feed:
A chinchilla eats about 30 grams of pellets a day. They do not, however, have a tendensy to overeat, so it's not a problem giving more pellets.

You should feed once or twice a day. It depends on what suites you best. You can feed early in the morning, late in the eavening or at both times.
The first time you feed, put 30 grams of pellets in the bowl (or 15 if you feed twice a day), the next time you are going to feed, there should be a few pellets left. If there's no left, give a bit more pellets. If there's a lot left, give a bit less pellets.
The left over pellets should be thrown out. They will get bad if left in the bowl, because they get a lot of mouisture from the air.

Hay:
Now we've looked at pellets, let's look at hay.
Hay is not the main feed, because all the nutrients is in pellets, but the chinchilla still need some hay for the system to work. There should always be some hay in the cage.

The most important thing when buying hay is to be sure it's not bad. This is quite easy to check.
Bad hay:
There should be no mold in the hay.
They hay must not be wet.
It should be dust free. Dust is a sign of mold.
Good hay:
It has a nice, fresh smell.
It's dry
If you find any dead insects like grashoppers, this is okay, and a sign they haven't usen any pesticides where the hay was grown.

If you are not sure about a pack of hay, don't buy it!

Update

A little update on colours.

Nebri and Madonna are both TOV. So Nebri is TOV Pink White and Madonna is TOV Pink White Ebony.

So Madonna won't get a TOV mate when the time comes :)

I'm thinking about just going with an extra dark tan/Chocolate hetero, instead of a homo beige.

Long eared hedgehog

I'm not updating that much at the moment. Neither on the danish version or in here.
So I thought I'de might as well try and get some help :)

I'm looking for a long eared hedgehoge. Hermiechinus auritus.
I would prefer to know what subspecies, and I really want a male :)

So if you read this blog, and you are able to ship to Denmark (or maybe I could come and get the hog, and make a trip out of it), or know someone who breeds these hogs, please let me know :)

Madonna

So this is our little girl Madonna :)


As you might be able to see at the two pictures above, she's quite the cheeky type :)
I have her and her mom MiniPiv suspected of bullying Madonnas dad Christian... He's a bit shy these days, but he's also great with both the girls, so he's just going to stay with them :)

Someone bit her ear. I think it's her mom. Madonna is not that bad at stealing food from her parents, not her mom anyway. Sometimes she tries taking food from Christian, and he just turns away from her, where Mini might get mad. Or maybe she bit Mini while trying to get some milk...

And here you can see her beige spot. It's the only spot she has.

We are keeping her, and I have a few mutations in mind when we are getting a male for her, at one point:
Homo chocolate ebony or dark homo tan ebony. And it would be cool if were TOV.
Homo brown velvet
Hetero brown velvet (dark)
Very light std. grey (like Toby)

I'm not sure how easy these mutations are to get a hold of in DK, so we might look ind Sweden, Norway, Germany or The Netherlands.


Oh yeah, and Donna is 1 month and 3 days old on these pics :)

Welcome to Furrytails

Thought I'de make an english blog about Furrytails.
I'm breeding chinchillas. Actually both me and my boyfriend breed them, but mostly me :)

At this point we only have one breeding pair.
The male of our first pair passed away a few weeks back.

Our breeding pair contains Turbo Chins Christian. An all black ebony male:

And Furrytails' Nebri (we call her MiniPiv on a daily basis) A Pink White poss. TOV female:


The 9. august 2009 Mini and Christian got a beautiful little Pink White Ebony girl. Furrytails' Madonna.
At first the plan was to sell this little girl, but there's just something about her. So we are going to keep her :)
The plan is to find a light grey, homo chocolate ebony (or dark tan homo), homo brown velvet or a homo TOV chocolate male for her.

And the we have the other animals :)
Furrytails' GalaThea and Furrytails's Fnug.
They are from our first litter, and they are sisters.It's Thea at the top, and Fnug at the bottom.
There's something wrong with Fnug. We are not quite sure what. She was very small when she was born, and she's always been kinda weird compared to other chinchillas.
Some times i fear she's dead, because she dosen't wake up when we touch her. We need to pick her up, before she reacts. Then she gets all confused, and just want to go back into her cage ^_^
She also have some other weird things she do. And she's a furbiter. I don't know why or when it started.
Thea, on the other hand, is a strong willed chinchilla. She wants to fight all the other chins if given the chance, but she's very kind to Fnug.

Then we have Mini, Fnug and Theas mum, Silver Streak's Mystique

She's a silver mosaic poss. ebony.

The last animal we have is Toby.
He's a beautiful light grey male. At the moment he lives with one of my friends, but I'm going to get him home soon - I hope ;)
He dosen't have a pedegree so we are not going to breed him. And he's also too big in our opinion.

And then a bit about why and how we breed :)
I got my first chin back in 1997. He died about 14 days ago.
But in 2004 I got Mystique, and her and Bisse became a pair.
In 2005 they got their first litter (Fnug and Thea), and we officially started breeding.
We didn't care much for the thendensy in chinchilla breeding, where people wanted "brick" animals. Or as they like to call them - baby faced. And we didn't like how big they were getting either.
We think it's a problem that the animals look so different from the wild chinchilla, because the animals have only been domesticated for a little under 100 years.
The chinchilla shows don't help much. Over here they are judged kinda like fur animals. There is some logic behind why a fur breeder would like an animal that looks like a brick, but now why a pet should look like that.
So we set the goal that we wanted pear shaped animals, between 500 and 700 grams.

We do not think that our way is the only right way. We just think that the chinchilla world needs both types of animals, because only breeding in one direction will result in health problems at one point (just look at very big dog breeds).

Other than that, we try to get as social and healthy animals as possible.
The avrage lifespan of a chinchilla is down to 8-10 years because of inbreeding. Some do get older, but not at many we could hope.

I know that we do things different that some other places in the world, but that's just the way it is over here, and I prefer the way we do things, to a great deal of other ways.
In the end, it must be about doing what's right for the animal and you.