"Dwarf" Chinchillas

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mark miller

mark miller

Miller Chinchillas
Joined
Feb 9, 2009
Messages
249
Location
Seward, Nebraska
I've recently discussed this topic with a couple friends of mine that raise chins. I've raised chins and grew up around chins all my life. I've seen thousands of baby chins born in that time. About 15 years ago, we had someone come to our chin barn to buy a young animal. She was walking down the row of young growers that we had at the time and she stopped and pulled out a 6 month old female that was the runt out of a litter of 3 and said "oh, you have a dwarf chin". This was the first time we had heard the term "dwarf" used with chins. We figured that was just the way she saw the smaller under developed chin compared to others its age. Then we started hearing the term "dwarf" used by other chin people as what seemed like a gimmick term to sell what normally would have been a undesired small chin with a flatter looking forehead and face and little round brevi-looking ears and round decent conformation body but just a little smaller than a normal chin. They appear to me to look like a miniature version of a large brevicadata type chinchilla. The term "dwarf" really took off with people in the pet world, and many truly believe there is a common genetic link between "dwarf" chinchillas. Personally, I think it's just a cutesy term that someone came up with to describe a certain appearance or look that some small chins have and not a related genetic abnormality. The so called "dwarf" gene may exist in chinchillas, but as far as I know has not been genetically proven to be linked in any of the represented "dwarf" chinchillas out there. Gimmick term or genetic classification, what are your thoughts?
 
I don't think mark is referring to ones that are being bred just for dwarfs. To be honest he is talking about my chin I had born about 1.5 yrs ago to 2 normal parents. The kit was normal size when born but as he grew you could tell he was "different". He's different in a few ways, front legs are shorter, large flat forehead, etc.
 
Since this is a debate, I am just putting my 2 cents in about those that breed for dwarfs or as Mark thinks, runts.
 
Oh I know Dawn. I, personally, am not breeding for that particular look. I have absolute no interest in them. Mine just appeared between two normal animals. That particular pair was separated afterwards.
 
There are several types of dwarfism. There is at least one type that is known to be genetic, there was a breeder that bred them and proved it to be a recessive, inheritable mutation. She no longer breeds them.

However, I think most of the dwarfs we see are flukes - it's not genetic, it just happens.

I do not believe the term is gimmicky - it is an actual condition. But I do believe intentionally breeding for dwarves is a gimmick. Depending on the type of dwarfism, there are many health issues that can arise because of it, some fatal.

I had one born that I believe was a fluke, both parents are normal and have not produced any other dwarf kits. He lived about three months, never got bigger than 120g. The necropsy showed his skeleton hadn't grown much but his organs had, and they had gotten too large for his frame.
 
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It probably has a genetic component to it and it isn't just small chins. Although if you breed the smallest chins together, likely you'll get small offspring. :)

I don't like to hear about people breeding for them because the "dwarf" chins tend to have a significantly shorter lifespan and really they shouldn't be put out there into the gene pool. You can make people promise to not breed a certain chin, but who knows what will happen in the future. Hobby breeders and ranchers have always told me to breed for the healthiest chins and that's what everyone should do.
 
lauralynne said:
There's someone in California that breeds for Dwarfs.
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Yes, these are dwarves that can pass on the mutation to their offspring recessively. This type is not unhealthy and one of the founding males of the line is about 9 years old now and still breeding and perfectly healthy. They have shorter, stubbier legs, smaller more compact bodies, shorter tails and only grow to about 400g. When put alongside a normal, small chinchilla of the same size...they are clearly dwarfish. Their characteristics are also obvious from birth.

There are different types of dwarfism and clearly one like the fluke Mish had is something that shouldn't be bred for.

I have seen ranchers selling small 500g chinchillas as "dwarves" and I think that's wrong. That is just a sales gimmick to get rid of a small chinchilla that no breeder worth their salt would pay good money for.

Breeding, raising, and selling chinchillas is a business. If people want cute, little dwarf chinchillas and there is a healthy variation out there (which there is) then I see no problem with breeding for it. The same considerations for quality need to be taken into account, but there is no reason a dwarf cannot be bred to higher quality animals to make healthy dwarf carriers and subsequent generations of dwarves.
 
While as far as I know there has never been genetic testing done chins who look like dwarves do exist. Whether these chins are true dwarves or some sort of mutation unrelated to dwarfism is unknown. Tabatha describes some of their features. A rancher located in Texas bred for dwarves as well as a breeder on the east coast who sold out years ago.

A true dwarf is extemely brevi in appearance however there are additional characteristics that identify them as dwarves. Their face is chipmonk like in appearance, front legs are unusually short and back thighs are quite thick and muscular. They have short bodies, small ears and short tails. Their gate is different due to body structure. The few produced here have been healthy and live long lives.

A few dwarf chins have been produced here over the years. The first one was quite a surprise since the parents had produced many "normal" chins before the dwarf and after the dwarf. That dwarf was in a litter of triplets and the other 2 kits grew out to be large normal chins. The pair never produced another dwarf. Somewhere in my herd lines the gene exists but since the gene is recessive determining which line or lines they come from is difficult to determine. I do not breed for dwarves but if one is born here it is placed in a non breeding home.

From my experience determining whether a kit is definitley a dwarf is not possible. Here dwarf characteristics have not become apparant until the animal is around 4 to 6 months of age. They just look very brevi until then. Sometimes they are normal sized kits who gain normal amounts of weight until they just stop growing.

Here are some pictures of the first dwarf R32 born here.
 

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Kathy, the chin you posted is a different kind of "dwarfism" than what I am talking about.

The dwarves that are in California have bred true to a recessive mutation for many generations. They have shortened, stubby, and slightly wider hind and front legs. Pronounced foreheads and shortened, condensed bodies. Their tails are shorter than regular chinchillas just because it's more proportional to their bodies. Their ears are not necessarily smaller and their faces are not necessarily shorter. They don't look like mini brevi chinchillas. They look like dwarves. They usually have a fairly even and normal gait but do have trouble jumping to ledges like normal chinchillas because of the shortened limbs. The differences between these kits and normal kits is obvious from the moment they are born. They're born with larger heads and more pronounced foreheads as well as shorter, wider, stubbier limbs. They're the same size as a normal kit, but the physical features clearly point towards dwarfism.

Dwarfism is generally classified by physical features and then later genetic testing just locates the mutation in the genome that causes the different physical features. Just as in humans and other species, there are many types of dwarfism in chinchillas. Some of these are fatal, some are not...but they are definitely not all due to the same mutation or series of mutations in the genome.
 
RDZCRanch said:
Kathy, the chin you posted is a different kind of "dwarfism" than what I am talking about.

The dwarves that are in California have bred true to a recessive mutation for many generations. They have shortened, stubby, and slightly wider hind and front legs. Pronounced foreheads and shortened, condensed bodies. Their tails are shorter than regular chinchillas just because it's more proportional to their bodies. Their ears are not necessarily smaller and their faces are not necessarily shorter. They don't look like mini brevi chinchillas. They look like dwarves. They usually have a fairly even and normal gait but do have trouble jumping to ledges like normal chinchillas because of the shortened limbs. The differences between these kits and normal kits is obvious from the moment they are born. They're born with larger heads and more pronounced foreheads as well as shorter, wider, stubbier limbs. They're the same size as a normal kit, but the physical features clearly point towards dwarfism.

Dwarfism is generally classified by physical features and then later genetic testing just locates the mutation in the genome that causes the different physical features. Just as in humans and other species, there are many types of dwarfism in chinchillas. Some of these are fatal, some are not...but they are definitely not all due to the same mutation or series of mutations in the genome.
Click to expand...

Tabitha my description of a dwarf is very similar to yours. My choice of words may be a bit different but mean about the same. Yes the head of dwarf kits is large however I associated it with brevi characteristics rather than dwarfism. I agree that the tail is proportional to the body of the dwarf however when compared to a regular chin it would be considered short.

Since I do not breed for dwarfism I am not as experienced in identifying it in kits as you are. I was merely sharing my experience with dwarfism and stated it as such. Chinchillas.com has sold dwarf chins in the past and the dwarves produced here have the same characterists as those sold there. I did not feel it was neccessary to state more than one type dwarfism mutation exists because it has already been established in this thread. Perhaps you could post some pictures showing the difference between the animal I posted and the dwarves you produce.
 
I have a tan kit here who is out of a litter of 3. He looks pretty typical except for his hind legs. His feet are MUCH wider and furrier than any other chinchilla that I have ever seen (kit or adult). He lost a front paw during littering so we have named him "Frodo". I have been watching him closer thinking there is something genetically wrong with him. Other than the feet right now he appears to be a normal, healthy chin. His mother rejected him but he is doing fine with his foster. Has anyone else seen this? I will try to get photos later.
 
Pics of Frodo's feet and his foster brother for comparison

These are the best pics I can get of Frodo's feet, he is shown with his foster brother for comparison and they are both 6 weeks old. The pics don't really show how furry the feet are nor how wide they are in comparison, if I had to guess, I would say they are about 50% wider and hairier than a normal chinchilla foot. They are also about 20% shorter. Just wondering if wide, short & hairy feet is a characteristic of a dwarf or is this a manifestation of something else? I have never seen this before. He scuttles more than he walks. At first I thought it was because he was a tripod and had trouble balancing but at 6 weeks old, his gait still seems a little funny.

In the first picture, Frodo is on the left and in the second pic he is on the right (he is a tan and foster brother is a beige).
 

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