Question:
I thought it would be interesting to find out why some of you have chosen to breed your animals.
When I started out breeding chinchillas, I honestly did not have any clue what I was doing. I thought it would be nice to have babies because chinnie babies are so cute and adorable. As I started to acquire more knowledge and learn from the large scale breeders and ranchers, I realized I was going about it the wrong way. After learning mor, my intention was to acquire a high quality herd and better the species by breeding top quality animals. Of course it is a wonderful experience to have kits. Who can resist them? After giving it a lot of thought I knew in my heart I could not possibly have the time to take care of kits that would possibly need supplementing and it isn't fair to work full-time and leave the mums to fend for themselves. I am quite content with the fact I have acquired some high quality chinchillas since I started out but for the time being, they will not be bred. I think it is more important for me to focus my time, love, and money to the animals I currently have instead of bringing more into the world.


Answer:
I have never actually bred my chins. When a friend of mine went on holidays, I offered to chinsit as we thought that Hazel might be prego. It turned out that she was and I got to experience having chin babies for the first time. The second time was when I officially adopted Hazel (my friend was moving away) and after a gain on 30 grams in one week, I started to think she was prego again, and she was. She had two more girls and I couldn't give them up...plus Hazel needed roomies. So that is my mini herd...Hazel and her girls and then my two males. I would love to have babies again but none of my chins have pedigrees and I don't feel that my males are good enough quality. Hazel's girls have turned out to be really nice chins, big and blocky, small ears, dense fur and nice white bellies. As tempting as it is, I am not willing to lose any of them just because I want babies. They are a lot of work even when things go right. I would never have the time to take care of them if things didn't go right as I am working full time. Another thing that I don't want to risk is having to pay emergency vet bills. It's not that I don't think that my chins are worth upwards of $400 but is it really a risk I want to take just to have babies? Not really. I would rather have that money to build them a new cage, or buy them treats, etc. Anyway, even though I have had good experience breeding and the babies are so addicting ,I don't think that it's fair to my animals if I am not completely willing to commit my time and money.


Answer:
When I had my hamsters (I was about 10) my sister and I thought it would be fun to breed them and have little hamster babies and we did and we had too many babies to count. So I ended up giving the babies away to friends and then the male hamster ran away and we gave the female away.
Okay, the point I am trying to make is, back then, I never thought of what would happen AFTER the babies arrived. Now 11 years later, I don't think I will breed anything ever again unless I had time and money to spend to house the animals and for vet bills.


Answer:
I have bred Hamsters, chinchillas, Rabbits in the past.


Answer:
this is a good topic and really thought provoking.
i started out with 2 chins, both males and no intention of getting anymore. but as we all know, they are very addicting. Our roo was not getting along with any other males and a female became available at my breeders. roo and syd fell in love very quickly and are not easily separated. I had done all the reading about breeding and the reason I decided to go ahead and give roo a female friend (with the possibility of having kits) is b/c mainly I wanted to share the joy of chins with others. my breeder gave me a very special gift when she sold me my first two chins....my chins are my children and I will never forget the feelings I had the day I first saw joey and roo. I wanted to be able to give others that same joy. ofcourse babies are adorable too but I believe that is not the only thing that should be considered when you start breeding. its a committment and I was willing to do anything for the kits and their mom if needed. when my first kits arrived in july, I will never forget seeing their faces for the first time, or how wonderful of a mommy syd was and how great roo was as a father. I know it may not always turn out picture perfect like my first litter, but in my opinion, the joys outweigh the negatives. I am a very small hobby breeder...I only have 3 pairs together so I will never feel too overwhelmed with babies.


Answer:
Amanda, are you breeding to improve the species?
This is not geared towards you in any way but I have seen so many people breed animals that shouldn't be bred. I hear so many people asking if it is permissable to breed a pet store chinnie and even though the overwhelming response is "NO" they do it anyway. They stipulate to customers the offspring are not to be bred under any circumstances but that doesn't guarantee the customer won't do it. Even though a chinchilla may come from a breeder, it is still important to find out the pedigree of the animal.
My general feeling towards breeding is that it shouldn't be taken lightly and more thought should be put into it.


Answer:
Okay, just to play Devil's advocate here...
Most of you already know that I don't agree with breeding chins without a background but here goes...
Great chins can produce poor offspring, I don't know how often it happens but it does. So Chin A has a pedigree all the way back to its great grandparents and no defects so far. Chin B only has a pedigree back to its grandparents, no problems so far but is better quality than Chin A. But! Chin B's parents are only a couple years old. Now, Chin C has pedigree back to its parents who are both over the age of 4 and have no problems. Chin C is the best quality.
So, given that little scenario, which chin should be bred and why? Which shouldn't be bred and why not?


Answer:
Candice, you posed a tough question! You are absolutely correct, quality doesn't guarantee quality offspring but that is what ranchers and most breeders strive for. I will be honest with you and tell you that most of the pedigrees I have only have either the parents or grandparents indicated. When you go to a rancher, they only supply the parents and where the parents came from.
If I had to make a choice, I would say Chin C. You are getting quality and the parents are over 4 years of age without any evident health problems.


Answer:
I'd follow the horse breeder adage: "Breed the best to the best & hope for the best". No point in breeding chins you KNOW have problems & increasing the risk of babies with problems. Incidentally, I beleiev in this for humans too: I think my genes should not be passed on so I will not be breeding myself either.
I also think of all the stress & complications to the female that occur during pregnancy & birth, & I don't know that I could ever do that to any of my pets. It still upsets me that one of myy favourite racehorses of all time, Shady Daisy, died last year due to pregnancy complications.


Answer:
I used to breed campbell's dwarf and syrian hamsers, fancy and spiney mice, fancy rats, chinchillas, guinea pigs (rex and hairless) shaw's jirds, degus, mongolian gerbils and mini rex rabbits. The littler species like the mice and hamsters were heavily culled because I owned a lot of reptiles that needed to eat, so only the very best were sold. People raved about my super friendly small animals. I bred for temperament first, color second. Then, I got sick and had to sell all my animals. That was two years ago. But anyway, that's why i bred, to better the temperaments of some species, like dwarf hamsters. You could actually handle my dwarf hamsters, unlike a lot of the petstore bought dwarfs. I bred guinea pigs and rats for children's and classroom pets. I also bred stuff that no one else was breeding at the time, such as black bear syrians, black and dove campbells dwarfs, spiney mice and shaw's jirds. A friend of mine and I worked on rare mongolian gerbil colors, and have now established ee gene colors in Saskatchewan (she's now working on gg, siamese and shimmel)