Ebony Chinchilla Facts

"This is Lauren on behalf of Expert Village and we are talking about Ebony Chinchillas. Ebony Chinchillas are a solid black chinchilla, they have 3 or 4 ebony genes, and they come in dark ebony, light and medium just depending on how the genes are shown in the coat. They are grey-black with a grey stomach, black eyes and black ears they don't have any white. The ebony genes are accumulative so when there is more than one gene affecting the color that is where it shows up. The darker the coat will get depending on how many of the dark genes it carries. And since one or more pair of the genes is affecting the color, we don't use terms like homo or hetero ebony, it is just straight ebony. As a note, you have to be careful not to breed two ebonies together. I have talked with breeders who choose not to put them in to breeding until they are two or three years old because there tend to be some genetic problems that run in the lines and the chances of having some sort of an issue are magnified if you breed the two of them together. So, typically you want to breed them with a color such as the standard or something else. One of the issues that you do have to be careful with in this line that we're talking about when you don't want to breed them together is tooth issues. And this can show up when maybe the chinchilla itself doesn't have the problem, but they have a genetic link to it and if you breed the two of them together you could have a chinchilla with major tooth problems on your hands. Stay with us and we are going to talk in the next segment about beige."