How do breeding-chins live?

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I just want to pipe in about the ranch chins VS. pet chins-the ranches cull chins with known health issues such as malo, no questions asked, their herds for the most part don't have predispositions for teeth issues so the need for hay is less, pet chins come from all over the place, lots have no known background, so the need for hay is more important since we don't know what we are dealing with and its better safe than sorry.
 
Peggy,

I personally know of 2 chinchilla owners, Laurie and my mother's co-worker who has (2) 1-2 year olds. I do not personally know anyone else who has chins. I have seen ads and discussions online (including chins on here) where there are old chins, 28 being the oldest which was one my vet spoke of. I picked the number 15-20 because that is what a lot of resources say the lifespan of a chin is.

My question seems to have gotten perceived into something else. I simply asked if these ranchers kept chins long enough to see if not feeding hay made a difference. I do not know any ranchers or what they do or how long they keep chins. That is why I asked. If they kept chins for say.... 5 years (again, I have no idea how ranches work) then that is not long enough to tell anything.

I never pointed a finger, never said that ranch chins don't live long . I Simply wanted some elaboration on Megan's statement which said "several years" not 5,10,15, or 35.

You have to realize that pet owners such as myself do not know much about ranches and we are not born with the knowledge that you have. If you were just a pet owner and did not know ranchers, maybe you would understand where some questions come from.

Respectfully,

Steven
 
Again Steven, as with Susan, only part of that comment was aimed at you. Just the first paragraph. The rest was a generalization because this topic of hay versus no hay has been pretty much beat to death over the years.

If you haven't been to a well run ranch, then it stands to reason you don't know what goes on there, but the way you phrased your question made it sound as though ranchers wouldn't have any idea about chins and the long term effects of using or not using hay, since they only have them a couple years. Ranchers don't get rid of the parents of the chins that produce show winners and good pelts - they continue to breed them so they can get more. So they do actually have chins for a bit longer than you would suspect. When the female starts slowing down in production, if she has any health issues, or if she isn't springing back from a delivery they will often times put one of the offspring in as a replacement and cull the dam.
 
I know, Peggy. :D I was just saying...

I've seen chins that have been kept in breeding past 10 or 12 years at a ranch. They do keep the females in breeding for quite awhile if they can. The better quality and health, the longer a chin can stay in breeding producing usable offspring. It's in the best interest of a rancher to keep their animals healthy, of course.
 
I have never read the debate about hay. lol I feel so much better now because there are sometimes when I run out and just can't get to the store or order any for financial reasons. And I would be mortified if my babies don't live into their late teens seeing as that's why I got chins and not hamsters. This is a very educational thread.
 
I just want to pipe in about the ranch chins VS. pet chins-the ranches cull chins with known health issues such as malo, no questions asked, their herds for the most part don't have predispositions for teeth issues so the need for hay is less, pet chins come from all over the place, lots have no known background, so the need for hay is more important since we don't know what we are dealing with and its better safe than sorry.

Yeah I considered that also. Since most pet chins have inferior genetic makeup, it stands to assume that they would need a little more care than the high quality chins that come out of breeders or owners. Pet store chins would naturally be more predisposed to health issues, and therefore would need a higher quality diet.


My question seems to have gotten perceived into something else. I simply asked if these ranchers kept chins long enough to see if not feeding hay made a difference. I do not know any ranchers or what they do or how long they keep chins. That is why I asked. If they kept chins for say.... 5 years (again, I have no idea how ranches work) then that is not long enough to tell anything.

I never pointed a finger, never said that ranch chins don't live long . I Simply wanted some elaboration on Megan's statement which said "several years" not 5,10,15, or 35.

I agree with Steven. While many of the members of this site are chinchilla experts, a lot of us aren't and we've joined this site for the simple purpose of learning more. How are we to know what goes on in ranches, other than asking questions? I was under the impression that chins could live 15-20 years also, both because I had researched it online, and because I had seen it repeatedly on this site. I also question a rancher actually keeping a chin for that long because I can only assume that after a while the chin stops being profitable. That means, does the chin ever actually have the opportunity to grow old enough so that we can observe the implications of not having eaten hay? As for pelters, logic leads me to believe they will only mature the chins to a certain age where there is an adequate fur supply to be harvested. So the chins never mature to 15-20, and again, we can't observe the implications of not having eaten hay.


Again Steven, as with Susan, only part of that comment was aimed at you. Just the first paragraph. The rest was a generalization because this topic of hay versus no hay has been pretty much beat to death over the years.

While I can see how seeing a topic as mundane as hay be brought up so repeatedly over the years can be frustrating for someone as educated as yourself, especially if you're an admin, I would like to point out pet owners come and go to this site, and the only way for us to learn is by active discussion. As new pet owners come, questions will be asked that inevitably have been covered before, and it isn't really fair to criticize us for asking it because you feel it has been beaten to death. I mean no offence or disrespect, only trying to show you where we come from.


If you haven't been to a well run ranch, then it stands to reason you don't know what goes on there, but the way you phrased your question made it sound as though ranchers wouldn't have any idea about chins and the long term effects of using or not using hay, since they only have them a couple years. Ranchers don't get rid of the parents of the chins that produce show winners and good pelts - they continue to breed them so they can get more. So they do actually have chins for a bit longer than you would suspect. When the female starts slowing down in production, if she has any health issues, or if she isn't springing back from a delivery they will often times put one of the offspring in as a replacement and cull the dam.

I think that was the point Steven was getting at - at what age does the dam get culled, and how much of her health issues are associated with hay, if any? We aren't asking because we're implying anything, nor are we accusing any breeders or ranchers of not knowing what they're doing, we are simply raising the question as a simple discussion.

Again I mean no offense to anyone in any way. I am legitimately curious at this industry since it's quite underground and I've known nothing about it. I only questioned the use of hay since -all- of the literature I've read, as well as the information on this site and from forum members have pressed the point of the importance of hay. While I understand there are variables and extenuating circumstances with chinchillas, it also opens up the door to questioning.
 
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Age doesn't really have anything to do with culling. As I said above, JAGS had a 23 year old female still producing and she was healthy and happy. Someone once upon a time decided to post that females should be culled at 8, but that's not a "rule."

If the female is healthy, able to care for kits, maintains her weight, etc., then there is no reason to cull her.

And there is nothing "underground" about ranches. Most ranchers are happy to give you a tour of their place, show off their animals, (try to sell you some......), and answer any questions. I know I'm always thrilled when someone comes out here to the behind of nowhere to visit my chin barn. :)
 
Underground = generic population has no idea it exists. I'll be the first to admit I didn't even know chinchilla pelting existed. Honestly I thought that was illegal. I didn't even know there were large scale chinchilla breeders that owned 100+ chins. I didn't even know there were high quality chins vs pet store chins. I knew none of this, how could I? It isn't advertised, it isn't discussed, there's no tv reports or radio segments or books or magazine articles or songs or movies or anything about anything chinchilla.

As for culling, we didn't know breeders kept their chins for that long until we participated in this thread. This is why we ask questions, so that we can learn. And as an extra added bonus, we learn about things we didn't ask or didn't even think to ask, because we didn't know there was anything to ask.
 
You really won't see big advertisements on the radio or TV about chins, anymore than you do individual dog breeders or bird breeders, etc. You especially won't see it with a fur bearing animal for the obvious reason - PETA will rear it's ugly and usually stupid head.
 
Yeah but we know dog breeders exist because Animal Planet has a soft spot for the Eukanuba Championship. What is Animal Planet going to do with a chinchilla segment? Not much. Chinchillas are exotic. Again, this is why I called it underground, since we hear nothing about it.

Note: yeah peta sucks.
 
I think part of where the disconnect in all this is coming from is that so many people are unfamiliar with farming in general. Chinchillas are unique in that they're one of the few types of "livestock" that are frequently kept as pets as well as used for business ventures/profit. About the only other animals in that odd situation (that I can think of off the top of my head, at least) are rabbits and dogs, and the US market for meat rabbits is fairly small (compared to our consumption of chickens and cattle).

Legislation has been in place mandating care standards for cattle, chickens, and hogs for over 50 years as a food safety measure. But, small animals and the fur trade aren't covered by the same laws, and with the hoards of publicity puppy mills and bad feedlots/slaughterhouses are getting lately, I think the public perception of farming practices across the board has become skewed. News reports always show the worst: most farms are not the horror shows we see on tv, but without the chance to see actual breeding/ranching done right, it's easy to fill in the dismal images we see on the news when we think of "large animal operations" in general.
 
Underground = generic population has no idea it exists. I'll be the first to admit I didn't even know chinchilla pelting existed. Honestly I thought that was illegal. I didn't even know there were large scale chinchilla breeders that owned 100+ chins. I didn't even know there were high quality chins vs pet store chins. I knew none of this, how could I? It isn't advertised, it isn't discussed, there's no tv reports or radio segments or books or magazine articles or songs or movies or anything about anything chinchilla.

As for culling, we didn't know breeders kept their chins for that long until we participated in this thread. This is why we ask questions, so that we can learn. And as an extra added bonus, we learn about things we didn't ask or didn't even think to ask, because we didn't know there was anything to ask.
Ranchers do not often come to the forums for good reason....There are too many people that would start harping in and being nasty to them. Many have tried and they get responses that are snarky and attacking them. There are magazines and the ranchers are EXTREMELY willing to teach those who want to learn. I have always always felt very welcomed by them.

But they get attitude back like "why would I listen to you" Maybe because they have 60 years of experiance. Ranchers take exceelent care of their chinchillas and do love the animals and always show great care and respect to the animals, they just need to be buisness like about the animals as it is a buisness....

I have bought from many ranchers, They are concerend with the care the chinchillas recieve, every time I call Jan and Rich Jan asks how so and so is doing (chinchillas I have bought) and I know that If I have an emergency and I have they will talk me through it. Without Chris woods I would have lost Thumper last year and Ralph shoots, Jan Ryerson and Randy (Jags) were more help to me with King then the vet was. I really don't hink he would have survived hos prolapse without them...they still ask how he is doing

There is no secret society people are ignorant because they make no effort, why should a Rancher hunt you down to teach you something? if you want to learn you can go to them. I have emails from when I started out with Ralph explaining things to me,. when I bought my first breeding pair he spent 2 hours on the phone discussing my plans for breeding and what I may want to try and what I want to do.

They don't hide per say, but they don't advertise as they have to protect their farms security too their are a lot of crazy people out there...
 
That's a very good point 3Cs, and most likely very true. I'll be the first to admit that not all ranches are wonderful and that ranches in general aren't sunshine and rainbows. Large ranchers are running a business and that business, in most cases, involves pelting, wholesale, medical research, etc. It isn't going to be a pet utopia and it would very likely upset most pet owners to see chins live that way. But that is not because they are necessarily abused, just not what the typical pet owner is used to seeing or thinks a chin should have.
 
Staleomach you're misunderstanding me. Firstly, I've never once criticized anything about ranchers. Secondly, how am I going to go to a rancher to ask questions if I don't even know they exist? As for the magazines you mention, how am I going to know about these magazines if I don't asssociate myself with the animal industry much?

I'm not saying anyone is hiding. And I'm not attacking ranchers or criticizing them. I'm saying that you ask Joe Smith next door if he knew that there was such a thing as a championship chinchillas and breeding farms for chinchillas, he would raise an eyebrow and question where you heard that from. Not because ranchers are 'hiding', but we simply have never been in a situation or in a social group where we would have come to know about it.
 
There is no secret society people are ignorant because they make no effort, why should a Rancher hunt you down to teach you something? if you want to learn you can go to them.

Also I don't appreciate being called ignorant, or other non-chichillas owners being called ignorant, because I 'made no effort'. I had no reason to make an effort because I didn't know there was an effort to be made.
 
There is a group/ranchers/shows for everything... Hamsters, Hedgehogs,pigs,cows,dogs,horses, chickens and ducks.. When people start to research they will come across it eventually. If more people researched before they bought (I am not criticizing i didn't research either until after my first year with Harm) They would find this out. You have found this. I do believe most care books also mention ranchers and shows and such......
 
There is a group/ranchers/shows for everything... Hamsters, Hedgehogs,pigs,cows,dogs,horses, chickens and ducks.. When people start to research they will come across it eventually. If more people researched before they bought (I am not criticizing i didn't research either until after my first year with Harm) They would find this out. You have found this. I do believe most care books also mention ranchers and shows and such......

Yeah obviously I found this because I took in a chinchilla whose owner couldn't care for it anymore, so I went online to figure out what I had to do with this new little pet I acquired. And obviously you know there is a group for for hedgehogs/pigs/cows/dogs because you're in that industry. It's easy for you to fathom the existence of this society. The rest of us don't have a clue about this because we don't have prompts.
 
Monarch - I think you're getting riled for no reason. I understood what Kristy meant, and I don't think she was calling you ignorant or being nasty towards you. She meant ignorance in a broader sense, as in "ignorant of the industry" not that YOU are ignorant for not knowing about it.

This has been a good thread, let's keep it civil and keep the discussion open. It's good to see people curious about the other side of the fence from strict pet ownership. Sharing of this information helps to stop a lot of misconceptions from forming.
 
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