chin with lost pedigree

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Yes that is correct and the person who used your girl to make her had ALL pedigreed chins which is my point. I got the impression that she thought just because they were pedigreed they should be bred. I honestly wouldn't want any of them and I should have never bought this one. I offered to take her to the ACS show with me last year and she canceled on me last minute. Never heard from her since. The time I did spend with her I introduced her to Ralph and Barbara when I bought my first two males from them. I also tried to talk to her about MANY other things to encourage her to become more active as well but hey you can only lead a horse to water. This is what I mean when I mentioned before you have to have a certain DRIVE to want to improve your herd and be involved which in my opinion is more important than anything.
 
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Okay, I'm a bit confused at this argument and am hoping one of you can attempt to explain this to me.

You want to "improve the line", but have no problems "culling" (killing) any chins that turn out to have a defect, and any that travel down that line from that defect. Is that a correct assessment?

I've also seen time and time again on this forum. "If you haven't bred before, separate your chins, something terrible might happen in the breeding process if you're inexperienced." How are you ever supposed to learn? How did you learn? You had to have been newbies at breeding once as well.

I saw a mention to, "fine lines" to send to newer breeders on breeding without a pedigree. I have to say, I rather agree with the fact that any fine lines need broadened. When I'm seeing, "breed to improve the lines, but kill anything that doesn't improve, or sell it to someone who just wants a pet." I'm a rather new chin owner. I'm breeding my chins. I'm not breeding them to sell them, I'm not breeding them because kits are adorable. I'm breeding them because I want to breed them, and if one thing being a Marine has taught me. The best experience is hands on. I'm open to learning things on this forum, and taking advice, as I, and everyone no matter how experienced you think you are, are going to be always learning. However, it rather annoys me, when I hear "don't breed your chins, something bad might happen." Something bad can always happen in the breeding process, for any animal. Unfortunately for some chins, it seems that not being near perfect is a death sentence.

I almost feel like Godwin's law should apply here....
 
To be completely honest with all of you, as some one who has researched and read as much breeding info as possible over the last seven years, been to a couple shows and at one point wated to start breeding some time.. As some one who is 'only' a pet owner currently.
I've read this thread carefully and followed it. What I take away from all this is that many breeders simply do not take responsibility for thier actions and largely are not held accountable for thier actions. Some of the larger herds, breeders that any new on the sceen or aspiring breeder would look to for advice or guidance and I see a whole lot of things wrong. Had I looked to many of these breeders for guidance years ago I would likely have turned into the same sort of 'who cares' type of breeder.
Being involved is very important to learning an breeding but what's the point of being involved if you are involved with a majority of breeders that simply don't care enough to reasses thier practices continuesly.
Perhaps a little more self awareness is what we need in a chinchilla breeding community and a little less 'who cares'
I agree with dawn 100% all I see is a group of people who will breed any thing as long as it looks ok wether a pedigree is lost non existent or lied about... Cl chins pet store animals or rescues. When many seasoned breeders practice this where exactly are the new breeders going to learn that generally accepted practices are not Infact acceptable??
It's truely nice to see that vyxxin stands up for the right thing to do, That responsibility IS taken and that accountability is welcomed.
You are some one I would truely love to learn from.
To the OP if I were in your shoes I would either hunt down that full pedigree or not use the animal.
 
And another thing to add on to my last post. What determines, "a quality chin from a reputable breeder." All lines started somewhere. All lines had to start somewhere without a pedigree. So, what exactly dictates that someone can't start with one from a pet store, or without a pedigree, and improve the lines to be healthy from there out?
 
GinChin in an honest attempt to try and answer your question what they mean by "culling" or putting down an animal with a defect what they are referring to is a health issue such as malo. In that case that is only being humane. If an animal on the other hand is lacking one of the desirable PHYSICAL characteristics such as size, confirmation, color, clarity or density those are physical attributes that can be worked on through selective crossing in future generations. Those are two entirely different things.

As far as choosing your starting breeding stock what I did was look at as many different chins as I could and I decided what I liked best. There are noticeable differences in chins that make some more eye appealing than others. Decide what you are after and go from there. That is why people are encouraged to attend shows so that they can see for themselves the different chins and the judges comments that they receive.
 
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Missed the edit but wanted to add...There is an awful lot more to it than that but that is only the starting point. Once you get your start then what you want to ask yourself is how best to improve in the next generation and so on. I look at it as a series of building blocks...
 
Like it or not, when breeding, genetics are always in play (yes, stating the obvious). If you are in fact breeding for quality, meticulous record keeping and traceability in the form of pedigrees are the best way to insure the health and purity of your animals. Obviously there are no guarantees even with a pedigree.

Having said that, I would not use the animal without the pedigree- just my humble opinion...There are plenty of nice animals with know lineages out there...
 
Pookinaround said:
GinChin in an honest attempt to try and answer your question what they mean by "culling" or putting down an animal with a defect what they are referring to is a health issue such as malo. In that case that is only being humane. If an animal on the other hand is lacking one of the desirable PHYSICAL characteristics such as size, confirmation, color, clarity or density those are physical attributes that can be worked on through selective crossing in future generations. Those are two entirely different things.

As far as choosing your starting breeding stock what I did was look at as many different chins as I could and I decided what I liked best. There are noticeable differences in chins that make some more eye appealing than others. Decide what you are after and go from there. That is why people are encouraged to attend shows so that they can see for themselves the different chins and the judges comments that they receive.
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If that's the case, then why put down all chins from that line. From my knowledge of genetics. It's possible for a chin that has malo, to have chins in future generations that the bad trait has been weaned out of. However, I am reading comments of culling where that chin and it's entire line is put down just because that chin and a handful of it's offspring developed it.
 
Because any future offspring out of a malo chin could be a carrier of the gene even if it is not expressed. If it is a carrier and that carrier is then bred the the problem continues. The goal is to eliminate the potential for malo chins to be born down the line.
 
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Could be a carrier, not guaranteed to be, correct? How is that humane?
 
Because if you have ever gone through a chin having malo you would not that risk being passed on to any chin.

I don't breed but there is someone in Canada that breeds tons of chins and all have pedigrees. I am sure most should not be bred but because this person only sees pedigrees as being the key.

Personally, I don't think getting chins off CL and matching them to a breeder is the way to go. No pedigree should mean no breeding.
 
No, but you can not breed that line and sell them as pets with the warning that they're is a "chance" that they might have malo and you'd recommend that they never breed them and keep them as just pets. Not kill the whole line just because they might or might not have something.
 
Cull does not always equal kill...it usually means stop breeding the animals... I had a malo chin from two animals who did not display malo at all. The breeder stopped breeding them.
 
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If culling doesn't equal kill, then I've been mistaken the meaning of that word in the thread, with the context of keeping the pelts...
 
Cull does not equal kill, but cull is often used as a euphemism for kill (so much so that I often equate cull with kill when I hear it used and then I hope that's not what they mean). It's one of those words that requires each person to clarify what they mean when they use it.
 
I've also seen time and time again on this forum. "If you haven't bred before, separate your chins, something terrible might happen in the breeding process if you're inexperienced." How are you ever supposed to learn? How did you learn? You had to have been newbies at breeding once as well.
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Every time I've used this phrase, it's with people know very little about chins and have a pair they usually got from someone else off CL or a humane society and know nothing about them at all other than they are chins. Yes, bad things can happen. If you come here having done research and wanting to do a good job, you will find a lot of support.
When I started breeding I had about 3 litters before I found a mentor. I saw the chins they produced and knew that's what I wanted. I sold off almost every animal I owned because they told me they were not good quality... because I wanted to produce something better.

Cull means to remove from a herd. The problem with malo is you don't know if an animal carries it or not. Why would you continue to breed a line that you KNOW produces malo chins? Most malo chins die at a young age and either they suffer terribly because the owners are incompetent, or they cost a lot of money for the owners to maintain a quality of life wondering if they are suffering. Either way how is that fair to either side of that?

Even petting chins out, you don't know. People lie all of the time, they don't want to breed, they just want a pet... yea, until they contact you with a dead mom and kits they don't know how to care for.

For me cull can mean either/or. If I cull something because I don't like it's quality or it's offspring, I'll pet it out. If I cull because of health issues, usually they are showing and why would I want to pass along a chin with health issues? There are very few people I would trust with chins like that and they can only take in so many chins, so in these cases I put them down.
 
100% agree with riven on this, your only other option would be to keep all those animals from a line that may have malo as pets for yourself. And wether it be money or space or time that's just not feasible at least if you plan to continue breeding and need to re-establish your breeding herd with new animals...
Go through malo once and you would not condem a new owner to have a black cloud over thier head that thier new chin will in all likely hood have malo at some point. If they don't notice the malo signs the chin dies a horrific death. If they do and know how to care for them how many would come back to you as a breeder and ask for compensation for the thousands of dollars worth of vet bills they will have.
What would you do? Honestly I don't like the thought of euthanizing a bunch of chins before they have had a chance to live out thier life... But I had to think this through before forming an opinion on it.
And this is part of the reason I am not currently a breeder. Perhaps it's part of the reason many people should not be....
 
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Thanks Mel. If malo came up in one chin out of a prolific line, then that's different than many coming up. Malo is genetic, yet is can be something like a fall from a cage as a kit or what not. One chin, that puts up a warning to watch those lines, do some jaw checks, etc. not hurry up and put down an entire line. But more than that and it's definitely something that should seriously be considered as a genetic defect.

I personally know that malo hurts. I have a tooth that had a root canal (wish I'd have just had it pulled) and if I knock my jaw out of alignment it will strike that tooth to the point where I can't eat and it will cause an abscess from the swelling. I can't imagine the pain a chin would have with an entire mouth full of misaligned teeth, or worse to the point where the roots are growing through.
 
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