How did this come about?

[ChinMom]

Any chance the father is not actually the father?

I wondered this as well and questioned them, but they insist the parents are as shown.

 

[Stackie]

Apparently everything I have ever read is entirely false. Allow me to apologize for all the inaccuracies of the world. If you would be ever so kind as to point me in the direction of a professor or anyone who has studied chinchilla genetics on a scholarly level, any quality books written from an educated point of view, multiple web sites with studies or other reliable information, or anything in general that would be reliable sources to further my education I would surely appreciate it. Nothing would currently make me happier than to learn the correct information.

If you could let me know the multiple sources that you read that said standard (the NATURAL, wild type coloration of chins) and beige are recessive, please do forward it to me so I can inform the authors that they too are mistaken. Find an experienced, reputable breeder/rancher who is willing to help and educate you. They are the best resource. That snarky attitude isn't going to get you very far. There are plenty here that are happy to help people and answer questions but not many will want to help you with that attitude.

 

[ticklechin]

If there was a professor in chinology, more than likely they would know jack. Like Stacie said, you want correct info go to a rancher/breeder who has been around for awhile and shows, you will get your info. The internet for the most part is a mine field of incorrect info.

 

[Zoaea]

"The genotype of the Wilson white is the dominant white gene and the recessive standard gene." Misunderstanding

"There are varied patterns in the fur of the dominant whites and depend on how strongly the white gene expresses itself. " Correct

"You can also have what is known as a pink white, in which there is the dominant white gene and the dominant beige gene. Their phenotype is usually a white chinchilla with pink ears." True enough

"A chinchilla with the white dominant and the beige recessive (as discussed previously) can be referred to as a beige mosaic or a pink white mosaic." inncorrect

"I do have one question now in regard to the original discussion. If a parent has a recessive gene such as beige for example, can the baby inherit that gene but in them it will be dominant?" This is a semester long question, but in the way you are expressing it, no.

Chinmom almost all of the chinchilla information in book format is completely outdated or wrong, also most vets have incomplete knowledge. I'm guessing a lot of your post was quoted from a source (it sounds like the older texts on genetics). Additionally a lot of casual breeders might not have all of their genetic information strait. Genetics are a complicated topic and most people use the simplified version you learn in basic biology (ie; dominate, recessive, incomplete dominance) when the real world of genetics is much messier with only a few genes actually behaving in that simplified way.

You got most of your information about genotype vs phenotype correct, but discussion of it only serves to complicate the actual genetics. This is why people are saying things like "a white is a white".

Genetically speaking you almost have one of the more advanced genetic concepts down, but sticking with the simplified version in chinchillas is all that is needed, as the colors tend to behave nicely (except ebony). So, in true genetics (not the simplified version that is good enough) you are correct in thinking of one gene being dominate in one circumstance and being recessive in another. For example, uh... (ok this is hard!) green eyes in humans. When someone has a brown x green genotype, the green gene is recessive. When someone has a blue x green genotype, the green gene is dominate. Currently none of the chinchilla coat colors do this. I will try to explain why using the colors you did (white, beige, standard).

White: it is an incomplete dominate, it is also NOT at the same locus as the other colors. Therefore it is never actually a direct comparison! You would never say it has one white allele and one standard allele. So an animal either has Ww, or ww (WW being fatal) where the W is the white gene and the w is the normal coat pattern.

Beige: It's technically some form of incomplete dominate, it does share the same loci as standard. It is incompletely dominate to standard (standard is an incomplete recessive to the beige allele). For example a Hetero-beige has a darker, different appearance than a ****-beige. If beige was truly dominate to standard then there would be no visual difference in **** or hetero.

Standard is the wild type fur color, all others are mutation types (however that doesn't mean they are at the same location of the chromosome). The only colors that appear to share the same loci for sure is beige. Even the recessive colors sapphire and violet seem to be at their own loci, otherwise blue diamonds would be much simpler to breed (a sapphire bred to a violet produces standards that carry the 2 recessive genes).

Anyway that's just the tip of a gigantic, understudied ice berg. If you are super interested in "true" genetics, Coursera has a class called useful genetics (which is were I learned that even college biology classes feed you the watered down genetic story). https://www.coursera.org/course/usefulgenetics

 

[chinsNdobermans]

I volunteer to become a professor of chinology. Make it so.

 

[ticklechin]

Rather than being a Chinologist, I am a chin whisperer so I get the info from the source.

 

[Zoaea]

Haha Dawn!

Dee your first job as Master head honcho prof. of Chintology is to map the chinnie genome and find out what is responsible for all that cuteness with attitude!

 

[ChinMom]

Zoaea, do you have any input as to the original topic of this thread? I am interested in your opinions on it.

 

[Zoaea]

back to the orriginal post

Recently I met someone who bred a Wilson white and a mosaic. To my knowledge, this is breeding two whites which creates a lethal factor.

Yes, it is breeding two white gene'd parents together. However, the 25% that have lethal genes are simply eggs that never develop (ref: word of mouth). As for my personal oppinion on such practices, I aim to pair parents that complement each other. Right now I have only had 3 litters and 1 breeding colony. So I'd never double up a lethal factor. In the future I might if two of the right chins were there, however it would likely be 2 blacks.

If I'm correct, a Wilson white has the dominant white gene and the recessive standard gene. A white mosaic has the dominant white gene and the recessive beige gene.

A white mosaic means the white gene and the color its paired with present in a patchy mix, a mosaic. However, it can be a white/standard or any other whitr combo. Mosaic is used to describe the pattern rather than the color. Also, the pictures are dim but id say the mother looks to be either mosaic or silver and the father looks to be predominatly white. Both white/std.

With beige genes the ears and eyes are pink. It's true that an all white animal could hide beige, however the ears and eyes would still be pink (henese the nickname of beige/white as pinkwhite). the picture of the sire shows grey ears (pics not good enough to tell eyes) but beige have both and no other common color share this trait.

Now I am a bit confused, if the parents were as they said, how this baby came about. I thought if he was a tan wrap, then he would have the dominant beige gene and the dominant ebony gene. What are your thoughts on what he is, or what the parents COULD have been if they weren't what they thought or had something else in there.

You are right to be confused, beige couldn't hide with those 2 parents. It is possible they have a ton of chins that they linked the wrong pic for sire. If not, what likely happened was an escape, during which the female was bred by some type of beige carrier. Chinnies sure can be crafty buggers, escapes might beforgotten by the breeder after 4 months too.

So if one or both parents are wrong I'd say he is either beige with a weak belly or has a touch of ebony. Btw ebony isnt dominate, I don't breed them but from shows and talking to experianced breeders I'd say it behavies like either a cluster of genes that play off each other or is cumlitive (like human hight and human skin color).

Disclaimer: ive been raising chins with a goal of showing animals for 2 years, ive had 3 litters with 2 being in the last 2 months. my genetic experiance is from work (I'm a nurse), being a nerd about science, and gethering info on the chinchilla genetic behavior from veteran breeders! Also, sorry for spelling errors Im' typing this on my husbands phone and I can't figure out how to turn it on.

 

[AcornHill]

Original topic

Hello ChinMom....I don't do forums much however I am a long time shower of dogs, many years breeder (Best in Show breeder) of rabbits (color genes work the same in rabbits and chins) and several years breeder of Chins and work in the world of human medicine.....

Easy answer (though it turned into a longer one ...first we know at least one parent is a mosaic passing beige (which of course means its a beige mosaic because a standard mosiac doesn't pass beige) and I would guess from the looks of the photos its the one you called the Wilson's White...(p.s. it gets frustrating when people mention pedigrees because the best chin breeders out there, i.e. large show/pelt ranches/chin judges most often don't even give pedigrees because they don't mean much to them. All my stock is from large show ranches purchased as show stock and none of them gave pedigrees only cage cards).

All chins that "express" the beige gene (which a beige mosaic does) have eyes with a red cast to them. Mosaics expressing standard will not have a red cast to them. Shine a flashlite on the eyes (from an angle works best) and you will find out which one is the beige.

 

[Shenanigans]

One small thing to add about genetics- It seems like everyone's saying each chin parent can only have 2 color genes passed on.
Sometimes it works that way (with human blood type there's A, B and O and you get two to form your blood type- AA=Type A, AO= Type A, BB=B, BO=B, OO=O, AB=AB)
Others are a different gene but still relate to how the color ends up looking. So if gene A was white standard or beige you can pick two of those (even doubling up) but a gene like ebony could be gene B. On top of that the white in a mosaic could cover up the belly where we cant see if theres a wrap of color or not.
I took some Bio courses, but I by no means know chin genes so take this for what its worth. It just seemed like some posts were thinging it would have to be white ebony x white beige. it could be White Standard (two genes about ebony) x White Beige (2 genes about ebony)
Also an FYI, each option for each gene is called an allele. So there's a color gene with multipul alleles and different dominances, there's an ebony gene with a yes and no allele, and then there may be other genes determining how much white will show in incomplete dominances.

To add to the discussion/confusion- there are genes that will appear different in different temperatures (look up how Siamese cats get color on their points)
And different genes can interact to look like a third color. In Labradors there's a pigment gene (more or less color shown) and a separate gene for black. Yellow labs have the recessives for both, black has dominant for both, and chocolate is having the dominant more pigment, but without the blacker color If I'm remembering correctly.

Do all beiges have reddish eyes? I though homos did but not all hetero beiges had them?

 

[Dreamlite]

All beige mutes have red eyes. ****'s just have brighter red eyes than a hetro.

 

[Shenanigans]

All beige mutes have red eyes. ****'s just have brighter red eyes than a hetro.

thanks, its hard to tell in pics sometimes

 

[VolunteerChin22]

...(p.s. it gets frustrating when people mention pedigrees because the best chin breeders out there, i.e. large show/pelt ranches/chin judges most often don't even give pedigrees because they don't mean much to them. All my stock is from large show ranches purchased as show stock and none of them gave pedigrees only cage cards)...

I would disagree with your statement that larger breeders "don't care about pedigrees" and gives the wrong impression to newbie breeders who may take that to mean "if they don't care, why should I bother with getting pedigree'd stock" type attitude when that is not the case. Perhaps you're used to something different in the other breeding worlds? Cage cards do list a short pedigree, or at least the ones I got did. And this is from big players like Hummel, Ryerson, Shoots, etc. Many times they would remember a chin simply from the number on a cage card pedigree and tell me qualities that dam/sire had. There are also many records behind the scenes. So short answer, they DO care very much about lineage and pedigree. :thumbsup:

Side note, I would be especially leary of any breeder who is not willing to give you any lineage information. Red flag. Run away.

 

[AcornHill]

WolunteerChin22 - sorry for late reply. To further clarify - yes cage cards give ear tag numbers, herd numbers of dame/sire, etc. which allow the breeder to know who the dame/sire were; however it is for the breeders use and would mean nothing to you . Yes the breeder cares about the genetics (parentage) of the chinchilla.

However if by pedigree (and this is what most believe a pedigree to be and is the definition of one) you envision a (record of descent showing the animal to be purebred) genealogical tree with the name/number/color/DOB of the animal, parents, grandparents, etc. like you would see for a dog, very few show ranchers provide that (actually I've never purchased one that did).

This is what I believe causes confusion in the pet world. The definition of pedigree leads them to believe they should receive a three (3) generation pedigree chart or it isn't a "reputable" breeder.