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Brandon

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2009
Messages
804
Location
Middle of the Atlantic
One of my classmates just notified me about a week ago that he is breeding his pet store chinchilla. I sent him a huge long message asking him not to and listing the reasons not to breed, but he claimed "the female is the purest one the breeder could give me"

"Purest". Yeah, RIGHT & that still doesn't change the fact that the male is of pet store quality. Other classmates have already contacted him asking to buy a chinchilla but they are all not ready and not willing to give these chinchillas proper homes and the care they need- they're just too immature.

As of now, I feel helpless. There's nothing I can say or do that seems to change his mind. He claimed he talks to a "licensed vet in the US" everyday and she support him.

The vet must not be a very good one, seeming how these are both black velvet chinchillas and from what I've heard can contain the "lethal factor".

We learned about this in Science- I guess he doesn't pay much attention!?

What do I do!? Please help!
 
Well, hopefully we will get some gruesome breeding pictures on here soon- that would be a start. Also, tell him how much vet bills can be, how the mom can die, and how hard it is to hand feed babies every 2 hours. With school, he could never keep the babies alive. And 2 poor quality black velvets, that is just dumb.
 
I showed him the pictures from Riven's site and he claimed:

"the vet told me that can happen to everyone.. even peti. chinchillas.."

I'm assuming he meant PEDIGREED?
 
All you can do is give the facts and hope they make the right decision. Edited to add the biggest reason to not breed isn't necessarily what can go wrong because it can go wrong with the best quality or the worst no matter how much you know or don't know. It is the quality of the animals and the reasons for breeding.
 
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Send him here.

Some people just will not listen once they have it set in their minds. If he is like that there is really nothing you can do. If that is the case hopefully he won't have many babies breeding two BVs together.
 
The only good thing is the lethal factor won't cause problems like it does in horses/dogs/guinea pigs. He won't get deformed, blind kits that will die within a few days. It's a shame that he won't listen to you :(

I agree..send him here--atleast maybe that way we can try to educate him a bit.
 
I've already tried directing him here. He claimed he already knew everything. He is quite stubborn.

Also, he didn't quarantine and let them out to play already but "they didn't touch". Yeah, right! I explained to him that it just takes a second and she's probably pregnant, but he doesn't care.
 
You know he's just pulling your leg Brandon. I highly doubt a vet here in the US would spend their time coaching a middle school kid on the joys of breeding.

All you can do is keep stressing for him to come here and learn. He's going to breed, you aren't going to stop him. The best we can do is try to minimize the damage if he'll come and learn.
 
Maybe you can nicely tell him he should join the site just to chit chat and share stories about his chinchillas with everyone - then if he mentions the breeding... everyone can give him a firm warning of the risks.

I can imagine how stressed you're feeling about this. Good luck, Brandon!
 
Is this the same guy that was giving you grief about proper food, hay and cage size, awhile back? Seems he has a lot of growing up to do, after he gets a reality check!
 
i hate to say this but all you can do is offer your advice nicely (so that maybe he will hear it even if he will not listen) and then step back. you cannot make him take the advice and unfortunately it sometimes takes a sad even for someone to listen and sometimes even that won't help.

hopefully it will all turn out ok and he will loose interest quickly.
 
Why don't you ask your teacher to do an oral prod on chins and the importance of peds? Don't you have exams coming soon? :D
 
Exams are over, and to tell you the truth, my teacher knows 0.000% about chinchillas. I told her I had one and she called it an 'enchilada'. I hate it when people do that. She was like "Isn't that a Mexican food?"

ARGHH!
 
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