Breeding Bigger and Bigger Chins

When it comes to showing pelts, Ralgro is a necessity. It is recommended and promoted by the fur buyers and fur ranchers. I would say probably 95% of the pelts shown at ECBC Nat'l Pelt Show were Ralgrowed before pelted. The pelts are so highly scrutinized on condition that everyone has to use it to compete at the highest level. At the most recent pelt buy, I heard that many pelts were rejected and not bought because the fur buyer said they weren't prime enough when pelted which ends up making the leather weaker on the pelt increasing the chance of it ripping or tearing out on a garment. He re-emphasized the need to use Ralgro and pelt only when the fur is fully prime. There is a completely different stance on Ralgro when it comes to pelts.

mark miller said:

When it comes to showing pelts, Ralgro is a necessity. It is recommended and promoted by the fur buyers and fur ranchers. I would say probably 95% of the pelts shown at ECBC Nat'l Pelt Show were Ralgrowed before pelted. The pelts are so highly scrutinized on condition that everyone has to use it to compete at the highest level. At the most recent pelt buy, I heard that many pelts were rejected and not bought because the fur buyer said they weren't prime enough when pelted which ends up making the leather weaker on the pelt increasing the chance of it ripping or tearing out on a garment. He re-emphasized the need to use Ralgro and pelt only when the fur is fully prime......

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What a cop-out. Ralgro is not a necessity - from your posts it is, perhaps, an accepted norm amongst pelters but nothing is a necessity; not in terms of showing anyway.
Bringing a chin into prime at a specific time by means of anabolic steroids is done for monetary & business purposes - for me, using Ralgo (whether on pelt or live animal) for the purposes of showing totally devalues the whole show scene.

There is a completely different stance on Ralgro when it comes to pelts.

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That doesn't make it right & it doesn't mean it's not cheating in show terms. It is akin to athletes using anabolic steroids in order to win a medal - whether they are caught or not, whether it is a "hidden" acceptable risk or not does not change the fact that it is cheating - all for a medal/ribbon.

I am looking at this as a business woman in small business, and I am not getting it yet, how do you make money on winning show chins if they are not pelted or sold? Say its offspring are also show winners, how do these animals pay for their keep?

ticklechin said:

I am looking at this as a business woman in small business, and I am not getting it yet, how do you make money on winning show chins if they are not pelted or sold? Say its offspring are also show winners, how do these animals pay for their keep?

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It makes sense to me. You keep your studs and sell (or pelt) the offspring. Since not 100% of offspring will be superior to the parent, then you have a supply of pelting animals. The superior show chins are not only a base from which to produce the sale animals, but also advertisements to the quality of the rancher's product. If the offspring are also show winners, then you have the next generation of producers.

Claire, I agree with your point to some extent. We (meaning my father and I as Miller Chinchillas) always said that we would quit raising and showing chins before we would cheat just to try and win a show. In order to compete at the highest level at shows here in the US you have to improve your quality every generation of new babies. If you had established a top quality herd and started using Ralgro on your animals to win shows, it would only work for a year or 2 and then others would pass you up in quality because you wouldn't be able to breed your best quality animals to continue to improve because you gave them Ralgro and they're now sterile. That side effect in itself pretty much keeps people from using it on their best quality show animals. Pelts are different though. Remember Ralgro does not change or improve the trait qualities of the fur. The real purpose for Ralgro is for a rancher who has selected a large group of animals to be pelted to be able to get the majority of that group in prime fur condition to pelt at the same time. If you had 100 animals selected to pelt, with Ralgro you could pelt all 100 of them within a 2 week period and get them at prime fur condition. If you had those same 100 animals to pelt without Ralgro, you'd be pelting 2-5 animals every week for 9 months trying to get them all at prime fur condition. It is an extremely helpful tool for the large pelting herds to coordinate pelting times. Because it is accepted, promoted, and encouraged by all parties involved in pelting, I don't see it as cheating when it comes to pelts.

I understand exactly what you are saying, Mark, I simply don't agree with the whole principle & I never will. I disagree with any form of cheating, full stop.
Showing a live chinchilla or a pelt when there is any form of artificial (in this case, anabolic steroid) 'tampering' is not showing the chinchilla in it's natural state. The same is true of people who use talc/chalk to lighten a chin's belly prior to showing.......

The pelting/fur farming business side of it does not interest me in the slightest (personally I am anti-pelting for chinchillas) so I will not comment on that, except to say that even if I was, I still wouldn't pump my animals full of steroids - guess I'm just not that way inclined.

Seems like alot of work for very little profit, if any, dealing with pelting and ranching chinchillas. I actually like to make alot of money and I do having a business, don't see much point in investing time in something without a good return on investment. Call me jaded.

For most of us Dawn, raising chins is a hobby and a passion. I've been around chinchillas all my life. I enjoy every aspect of working with them. I definitely don't do it for the money. Most of us don't, cuz in order to really make money you have to have a large operation. Most of us just have a passion for working with chins, enjoy the friendships and competition at shows, and the occasional reward of selling a few animals to help pay feed bills, cooling bills, equipment and supplies. If you want to get rich, don't raise chinchillas. If you want a rewarding hobby that if managed the right way doesn't cost too much money, then you might make it raising chins.

I will keep my day job, thanks.

Many of the top males do end up for sale. I have bought several over the years

mark miller said:

For most of us Dawn, raising chins is a hobby and a passion. I've been around chinchillas all my life. I enjoy every aspect of working with them. I definitely don't do it for the money. Most of us don't, cuz in order to really make money you have to have a large operation. Most of us just have a passion for working with chins, enjoy the friendships and competition at shows, and the occasional reward of selling a few animals to help pay feed bills, cooling bills, equipment and supplies. If you want to get rich, don't raise chinchillas. If you want a rewarding hobby that if managed the right way doesn't cost too much money, then you might make it raising chins.

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Well said Mark. I consider myself to be in the "Most of us" group.

Ditto to Cathy and Mark's remarks.

How does one tell the difference between a chinchilla that is large and one that would be considered obese? Obviously physical size of the chinchilla is a factor, but is there a difference between a chin that simply has a little extra padding or fat versus a chinchilla that is obese? If one were to take 2 similarly framed chinchillas where one had become extremely overweight - would the average chin person be able to tell that the added weight came from obeisity and not attribute the extra weight to the assumption that that chinchilla had a larger underlying body frame?

Can a chinchilla be on a good pellet/hay diet, given a wheel or other exercise, show no signs of slower breeding production or lack of general health and still be considered obese?

Cheryl

Yes to all, and there are some very obvious signs, just like in humans. Easily spottable.

It is unusual to find a truly morbidly obese chinchilla, they don't breed well if at all so the predisposition is pretty rare. This was a chin out of a pelting herd fed a diet of pellets only his entire life.

I have had larger chins, but he remains the only one I owned that was as wide as he was long.

His name was Elvis, for obvious reasons. )

Wow, Elvis is bigger than my fat Kallel. The fourth picture looks very much like the human Elvis before he kicked it. Appropriately named. =)

Did he stay that fat? Any clue how to un-obese them? My fat boy is my only chin who won't use the wheel.

Spoof said:

Yes to all, and there are some very obvious signs, just like in humans. Easily spottable.

It is unusual to find a truly morbidly obese chinchilla, they don't breed well if at all so the predisposition is pretty rare. This was a chin out of a pelting herd fed a diet of pellets only his entire life.

I have had larger chins, but he remains the only one I owned that was as wide as he was long.

His name was Elvis, for obvious reasons. )

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Thanks for the pictures! I've bred some large chinchillas, but definitely none that look like Elvis! All my chunkers are just as active exercise and breeding wise as any of my smaller chins. My largest chin Rayna and a few of her sisters always have enjoyed their wheels, which is very amusing to watch considering their size

andreya said:

My fat boy is my only chin who won't use the wheel.

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Thats too bad that he won't use the wheel! Similar to his sisters mentioned above, he enjoyed a wheel when he was younger.

Cheryl