Question:
I am so confused about chin colours..... it seems that they have nothing to do with what the chin LOOKS like but everything to do with their pedigree. I see chins who look identical to Cub being called hetero ebs & charcoals. I always thought she was a standard.
I see pure white chins, no markings, being called "mosaic".
I see what I always thought was a Wilson white being called mosaic too.
And then you see many standards who look plain being claeed VC or eb carrier...... how do you know the breeder is telling the truth? What if you breed them & all you get are standard kits? Isn't standard dominant & the "carried" colours recessive?
The more I see, the more confused I get!!!


Answer:
What colour is cubs tummy? If her tummy is white, then she is a standard, if she has a grey tummy, then she either has a dirty belly or is a hetero eb. Sometimes ebony also causes a dirty belly in chins (but that's a whole other story). Wilson white I have been told are almost non existant, and that the whites that we are breeding now are descendants of wilson whites. I know that sometimes people have a white chin with grey ears and a bit of grey on the tail (like my Romeo), and they call them wilson whites, when in fact what they have is a white mosaic.
A carrier of recessives (violet and/or sapphire), must be bred to another with that gene in order for it to show (i.e. violet to vc or sapphire to sc), so you won't know if the breeder is telling the truth until those chins actually produce a violet or sapphire.
Ebony is an accumulative recessive, meaning that you can breed a hetero eb to a standard and still get hetero eb kits, but in order for that eb gene to get darker, both parents need to have a degree of eb in them.
Does that all make sense?


Answer:
Thanks firefox, the Wilson white thing still confuses me but I think I understand the recessive colour thing a bit better.
Cub is very dark grey, no veiling or paw stripes, with a very dirty belly. But she is just a pet store chin, so isn't it unlikely that a fancy colour would crop up there? I wish I could post a pic....


Answer:
OK...I think I understand, so Pablo (my chin) is a white mosaic...the only place he has gray is his ears. The rest of him is completely white. I thought since he didn't have veiling or grey anywhere else he wasn't a mosaic?


Answer:
If he's got veiling or paw stripes he's a TOV, I know that much. To me he sounds like a Wilson white but I think that they are now all called "mosaics" whether they have dark ears & tail with a white body, or actual spots (which is what I thought mosaic actually meant). Clear as mud......
So a dark standard with a dirty belly is not really a standard? Or does it depend on the bloodlines?


Answer:
Here is Romeo, he is a white mosaic, but, a breeder, who has been breeding for 6 years, came over one day, and she looked at him, and went "Oh, I didn't know you had a wilson white!" I just chuckled and went, ya. Just because she is they type of person that ALWAYS has to be right, so it was best left alone. But Romeo is a white mosaic


Answer:
Now he looks exactly like the Wilson whites in my chinchilla book. Why isn't be one? Bloodlines?
And what about Cub? Is a dark standard with a very dirty belly not really a standard?


Answer:
Because I was told that Wilson Whites are like a recessive mutation. I'm not sure how true this is, I just go by what nreeders tell me, and read what ranchers have said on the matter.
A standard can have a very dirty belly, it's hard to say why Cub would have such a grey belly without knowing any background on her.


Answer:
I thought Wilson whites had very dark ears and eyes.....not grey???


Answer:
By contrast, here's a pic of my mosaic girl Ginger ... she is exactly the same "make-up" as Romeo (genetically, anyways )