New Curly Fur Mutation by Ritterspach?

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menagerie

Creative Genius
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Jan 28, 2009
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So, I was innocently reading one of the UK forums and someone posted about a chin they noticed on chinchillas.com a "Curly Carrier." I admit I've not heard anything about a curly chin so I was intrigued.

This is the curly carrier in question. Looks normal, right?
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and these are the photos they found of a "Curly" chin.
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They remind me of a "rex" rat which has curly fur and whiskers.
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One of the downsides to the fur of the rex is that their fur also tends to thin out, I see skin in the chin photos. I can't see this as being something that is desirable.
 
Interesting...I think curly looks much better on a rat...what's the point of it on a chin?
 
If you go to this site you can see a few more "curly" chins. They belong to a german breeder I know. She is the one who traded some of her "Curlies" with Jim Ritterspach for some of his "Angora" chins.

http://www.chinchillahobbyzuchtwilson.de

Claudia
Ritterspach doesn't own the angora's, they are owned by a couple of women in Texas. I can't read German, so have no idea what tab to look at to see more. :(
 
Sorry, go to "Meine Chins". Then scroll down. Jim is selling the Angoras for Tamara Tucker and did make the deal, I am sure with her knowledge.

Claudia
 
I've seen curlies before, not in person, but have heard of them. I think they're kinda of cute, probably not for the price though...

ETA: the first chin looks normal because it's a carrier, the curly is appears to be a recessive gene. With just one carrier it would be hit and miss breeding for several years to get a curly I'd guess.
 
It just looks like a really dirty chin to me.

Ronda had a violet line that hand kinky fur. It only showed up in the violets, never the carriers, and it made this beautiful ripple effect all over the chin. They had a very shiny, short fur, the kinks were a lot smaller than the ones above. Of course, they got hammered on the show table and she got rid of the line, but they were neat.
 
I agree, it looks like a poor quality rescue with dirty matted fur. I love chin fur because it looks like a "solid mass".
 
When you scroll down to the first curly on this page, it just looks moth eaten to me. Further down there are curlier babies. Linky

I don't see this mutation as "bettering the breed." And if people are going to breed that for "pet" homes, it often means that they are not breeding with their top quality animals. So the "pet" home ends up with an animal that is of lessor quality.
 
You would be surprised on how nice some of the ones Jim is breeding are turning out. I have seen many of them that are far improved from what he started with. He is putting some great quality chins in with the ones he got from Germany and while they may not at this time be for the show table with to days rules they sure are something different. Tucker is also working with them.
 
Many times in herps (snakes, lizards, etc.) when double or triple recessive animals are bred to express "extreme" traits (like the Blizzard corn snake shown here with a "normal" albino/Amelanistic: http://mrskingsbioweb.com/snakeresearch.htm ) the offspring are sickly, hard to feed, and just generally a 'lesser' animal than the normals and single recessive animals. I'd be worried that getting curly fur to express in chins, especially in mute colors, would cause the same size and quality problems a lot of breeders have with violets, sapphires. Can anyone with better eyes for a show standard tell me if that appears to be the case here? (I'm trying to learn to see quality animals, not just "aww how cute" when I look at a chin.)
 
Jim is working on size and fur. They can't begin to compete with a good standard, but are getting better.

I too have seen some of them and "cute" is the perfect word for them.
 
I'm just a pet owner and although I do like the curly look, I wonder if it feels just as soft as the regular furred chins.
 
There are a lot of mutes that really don't have a "place" in the chin world. Whites were not bred by ranchers really because they had not pelt value compared to standards or blacks because of the inconsistency in color or patterns. I don't think that by breeding them trying to improve the quality anyone is 'lessening' the breed per se.

I have recessive whites, they really don't add anything to the chinchilla gene pool so to speak. As adults they don't look excessively different, and take up more room in breeding than a dominant white. I don't see the difference I guess.
 
I've never liked rex, not on cats, not on rats, not on anything. That's just my preference though.

I swear there was a thread on CnQ where someone had a curly baby born, and sent its picture to Jim, and Jim replied that the mutation he has been working with appears to be dominant and had tighter curls when homozygous - I remember this very clearly because I remember thinking it's dominant in rats as well.

Curly ebonies are how the Sakrison (recessive ebony) mutation was described.
 
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German Chins

I went to the website and found it very nice. I can't read German either, but I hit the translate button on my computer and I could read it all.
 
Kyle and I have seen Jim's curly chins....they are rather adorable, an likes it's been said, where they don't really have a place in the chin "world" now, with proper knowledge and breeding who knows? I'd really hate to see the wrong people get thier hands on them though....just sayin
 
I like the german site posted above. I didn't have a way to translate it, but I clicked around anyway, and found the "Geburt" tab to be really awesome--there is a slideshow of a chinchilla giving birth at the bottom, you can see the kit making it's way out from picture to picture--so cool!
 
They should breed the curly and angora chins together, so the curly chins could have long curly hair! I think that would be really pretty!
 
I think they are adorable, not that I plan on getting one anytime soon or anything, but when people talk about bettering the breed it makes me wonder what is bettering the breed? It seems everyone has a slightly different idea. At one time Im sure that violets/sapphires were not perfectly bred and accepted, and Im not even sure that we can still say that in every case.

I am just reminded of all the dog breeds and colors that were at one time not considered to be "bettering the breed" when people started breeding them. Munchkin, hairless cats? Red/white boston terriers just to name a couple. Overtime I can see these being accepted in the ring, most things are after the initial sort of shock they bring. Personally I think they will be just as accepted as other animals with certain mutations- in alot of time and work.

Feel free to disagree with me.
 
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