Zen Velvet & Smoke
Chinchilla Self Standard

Pedigree

13th December 2005: Today Velvet (finally!) had her babies! She was so HUGE that I was expecting a litter of at least 12, but she's had quite a modest 7. There are 4 black-eyed and 3 pink-eyed, I suspect PEW, knowing their genetics. The rest could be chinchilla, agouti, or mock-chocolate (I think). I haven't sexed them yet, and am off to Melbourne for a few days tonight, so you'll all have to wait til I get back.

19th December 2005: Liddle pink babies!

26th December 2005: Sorry for the lack of updates, my computer has decided that the holiday season is the perfect time to break down. *sigh* Velvet's litter opened their eyes today and they are SO stunning. This is what we have:

1 x chinchilla female
1 x pew female
1 x agouti male
1 x silver agouti male (small tail tip)
1 x pe bone male (off-white)
1 x pe ? male (dusky cream with blue/grey undercoat)

There's also a second chinchilla female who is the runt and seeing as there are 7 babies, tends to miss out on a lot of milk. I'm not sure if she'll make it, so I'm not listing her. At this point I love them all so much I may just keep them all! But, I will take expressions of interest on the boys.

27th December 2005: I think the ? boy is an extremely rare pink-eyed chinchilla, otherwise known as argente cream. Wow! I am seriously considering doing a second pairing of Velvet and Zircon - what treasures they are! I am also thinking that I might indeed keep the whole litter. I don't think I can part with Velvet's babies, let alone some gorgeous rare colours - sorry guys! Here are a couple of group pics, just cuz. First we have Gossamer, Geiss and Ocher, and second is Vox and Archan.

28th December 2005: Got some individual profile pics for ya!

17th January 2006: Today we said goodbye to little Archan, the PEW girl, and yesterday to the stunning silver agouti, Vox. Archan had been bitten by my older girls when trying to introduce her, but was not looking very happy prior to this and I'm not sure she would have made it anyway. I have no idea why my gorgeous Vox died - he was living with his brothers and uncle Ciaran, and was uninjured and perfectly healthy the day before. I don't know what to say, but am terrified that I have done something wrong. I won't be repeating Velvet's mating any more - just in case it was something that she passed on. I will likely be breeding her chinchilla daughter Gossamer, and her argente cream son, Fortune, at a later date. Goodbye babies :(