Chinchilla Community Forums
Breeders => General Breeder Chat => Topic started by: DianeKS on July 04, 2013, 09:18:29 PM
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My White Chin Sugar had three kits yesterday and I am trying to interpret the colors. The Sire Honey is White and Sugar's sister Cookie is heterozygous Ebony. There is beige in the background of the sire. Cookie is helping nurse the three kits since she has a single 6 week old male kit Bon Bon who is violet. The female kit in Sugar's litter is Black with a white blaze vertically down her nose and a white spot on her back and one on her tail. I assume this is reverse mosaic but wonder if the color will get whiter as she matures? One male kit is White with light silver spotting, I think he will be white or a light mosaic. The other male looks like he is solid violet like Bon Bon (no white belly). I am watching them carefully since the female kit Oreo is tinier than her brothers. They all hopped out of the nesting box this morning and have been active at the bottom of the 5 foot tall cage. I keep hammocks in the cage so when the kits start climbing up they will not fall and get hurt.
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So both mom (Sugar) and dad (Honey) are white? If I am correct in that you need to separate them. Two whites shouldn't be bred together. There is a lethal factor there so 25% of the babies will die in utero.
If Sugar's sister is a hetero ebony, and they had the same parents, then Sugar carries ebony. That mean the babies are white ebony an so is Sugar. (Ebony is a wildcard gene that can be carried and not shown) Does Honey have pink ears and reddish eyes? If so he is a pink white, and I believe the violet looking one is light tan. Both parents would have to carry violet to get a violet baby.
Ebony whites change a lot as they grow. You will want to take pictures because how they look now is nothing like they will look at 8 months or even 2 years. The black and white will change over time.
Can you take a picture of the babies? That would certainly help.