Ebonies...

[rainbowrotties]

What is the difference in a Homo and a Hetero Ebony (if any?)
How do you tell the difference between each different ebony (light, med. dark, x dark)??

I have a male that is classified as a hetero extra dark ebony on his pedigree his dam is a dark tan and his sire is a hetero extra dark ebony. He has very dark, shiny black fur every where!

Then I have a female whose pedigree says she is a medium ebony but lists her generations as all ebony or ebony carriers not light med. dark or hetero/homo. She looks like a dark standard except with her belly being the same color all over.

I also have an other female whose pedigree says she is a medium ebony but lists her other generations as all ebonies (nothing else). she looks alot like my TOV black but with her belly and sides being the same color all over.

Why is there such a big difference in color between the two females when both are supposed to be "medium Ebony" and why is my male called a hetero ebony and an extra dark ebony?

I'll get some good quaility pictures tonight and get them posted.

[starleomach]

Light-meduim-dark is just color phase. light ebonies arepale grey all the way around and medium are darker and dark are black,  Hetero and Homo are highly debated. In the end that doen't matter

[chinclub]

For awhile it was thought that Ebony acted like other colors meaning homo ebony (carrying two genes) would be solid black and hetero ebony (one gene) being greyish. If a standard grey looking baby was produced it was a standard.  Breeders have now found that Ebony is more of the wild card color.

I have a solid ebony bred to a dark standard.  Their babies would genetically be hetero ebony since dad doesn't carry ebony but they produce solid black babies 75% of the time.  What people refer to as homo ebony.

It is also carried unlike other colors so ANY baby born to an Ebony parent should be called Ebony.  I have had light ebonies produce pure white bellied babies who would go on to produce dark bellied babies when placed with plain standards.

As far as light. med, dark goes... each breeder has his own idea of what that looks like so you will get different looking animals with the same color name from different breeders.

In my herd if the chinchilla looks like a standard on top regardless of the belly (grey to white) it is classed as a light ebony.  If it is very dark grey and has the same color belly it is a med. ebony, and if it is sold black it is Dark ebony.  So if you lined up all light ebony chinchillas born here or medium ebonies born here there would be an obvious difference in darkness.  There is a whole spectrum of grey a chinchilla could be and still be classed the same.