Chinchilla and Sugar Glider Breeder of NC

Southern Unit of the Ohio Branch ECBC

1st Annual ECBC Show

DATE:

January 16, 2010

CITY & STATE:

Statesville, North Carolina

LOCATION:

Best Western Statesville

www.statesvilleinn.com

1121 Morland Drive

Statesville, NC 28677

(704) 881-0111

Room Rates:

2 Double Bed - $59.96 plus tax

2 Double Bed Suite - $63.96 plus tax

One time Pet Fee per room - $15.00

Children 13 & under are free

Online 7 day advance purchase price, no cancellation or changes

Other Nearby Accommodations:

Holiday Inn I-77 – (704) 878-9691

Super 8 Statesville – (704) 878-9888

Motel 6 – (704) 872-5215

SHOW TYPE:

Standard Show and Mutation Show

Limit: 20 Standards and 20 Mutations per ranch

Optional Claiming ($50.00 minimum bid)

Baby Derby (over 10 weeks – less than 4 months)

Multiple Ribbons and Trophies

JUDGE:

Ralph Shoots

SHOW CONTACT:

Janice Barrett – (843) 908-1492

REGISTRATION:

$4.00 per animal for unit members

$5.00 per animal for non-members

$4.00 per animal for Baby Derby

$10.00 per Vendor table

Admission: $5.00 per family if no animal is entered

GROOMING:

Starting at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, January 16th

Best Western Conference Room

Morning entry and Grooming must be completed by 9:30 a.m.

SHOW TIME:

10:00 a.m.

SPECIAL EVENTS:

50/50 Raffle

Door Prizes

Vendor Tables

The MCBA New York Show is now over and I'm proud to say that my babies did wonderful. There were 143 chins entered in the show and I took 7 of mine and picked up 3 while I was there.

My results were:

Galadriel - Predominately White, class 4 - Color Section Champion Female

Arwen - Mosaic, class 4 - Color Phase Champion Female 

Amethyst - Dark Violet, class 2 - 1b

Ashes - Dark standard, class 3 - Color Phase Champion Male

Nikolai - Dark Standard, class 3 - 1st

Trinity - Black Velvet, class 4 - Reserve Color Section Champion Female

Jacoby - TOV v/c - 2nd place due to color from violet genes

I also picked up the Color Section Champ Female Black Velvet from Paul K. of Kuby's Kritters along with a medium standard female that placed 1b. Dee of Humble Acres Chins delivered my new violet that placed Reserve Color Section Female.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the results and I couldn't have asked for better.

Now, I'll be putting all of my females in breeding and crossing my fingers for a boom in January-February. All of my mutations are paired to standards, so we should have a buttload of standards on the way.

Now - just to come up with the money for a chinchilla building. My chin room is much smaller than I thought it would be and since I'm expanding, I need to look into purchasing something larger. Right now we're at 30 breeders (including males) and we're hoping that by the end of 2010 we'll have over 50, but it honestly depends on how well everyone does in show at the end of next year. Wish me luck!

My Ohio trip is over and I am now 14 chinchillas richer. I came home with gorgeous animals from Ritterspach, Ryerson, Hummel and Shoots. They'll be shown or put into breeding before long, so hopefully we'll be expecting a major baby boom by the first of the year. Photos have been updated under 'Tiffany's Herd'.

The chinchilla room is now full!

I just finished up the chinchilla room today and put the babies in their new humble abode. I have a bit more room to walk in my bedroom now which is comforting. I hope this gives the guys and gals a bit more privacy to reproduce. Next weekend I'll be heading to Ohio to pick up 10 or so chins and 5 runs to add to the room. We're growing quickly!

It's been a while since I wrote on here, but I figured I'd list a few adjustments I have made and what I will be adding on to my herd to keep everyone updated.

The Room...

Recently, I decided to create a chinchilla room, since I have absolutely no room in my bedroom for more chinnies. I've taken an old storage room and turned it around into a cute little chin room thats 5'8" x 9' and will accomodate 10-12 breeding runs (up to 36 females in breeding, possibly) and my 7' tall Ferret Nation cage. I'm not completely finished with it just yet, but it's a work in progress. I put in show lights, a nice green paint that brightens your day, and I'm going to decorate it with chins, how nice. It'll be so much nicer when I'm done, and will be better than bringing customers into my bedroom while my husband sleeps :-)

Here's a recent photo of the progress:

Subtractions...

Soon, I will be selling my pink white female and I will no longer be breeding anything with a beige gene. Beiges don't sell well around here, and honestly, not much of a fan of beiges. I don't mind pink whites and tans and black velvets, but just beige chins aren't my forte'. I figured I could focus on my whites, white hybrids, blacks, ebs, and violets. I will not add sapphire to my herd, as I don't like the mutation and plan to work with only violets on the recessive end.

New Trip...

August 22nd-23rd I'm making a trip to Ohio to stop by the Shoots, Ryerson and Ritterspach ranches to pick up animals. My goal is 10 more chins, but I don't think that's gonna happen because I'm not rich :-) I'm picking up a violet bred by Randy Jagielo beforehand and will be adding him to my herd after quarantine, which means I need a few v/c females now. I'm hoping to pick up a few whites, some standard or e/c females for Obsidian since he hasn't been placed into breeding yet, and maybe a nice black if I see something I like, we'll have to see. I'm pretty excited, I haven't had the opportunity to visit the ranches just yet, but hopefully I'll learn a few things that will help with my breeding in the future.

Leucistic Gliders...

Also, in late August, I will be adding new sugar gliders to the bunch - a leucistic female and white face 100% leu het male. They're being shipped in, and I'm so excited to finally be able to offer leus (or at least I'll be able to sometime in 2010). They're still young joeys at the moment, but that gives me time to work on their temperaments and bond with them. Hopefully, this will be a positive experience since leus are hard to find in NC.

ECBC Meeting VERY SOON!

A new unit has sprung up in the Empress world. The Southern Unit of the Ohio Branch had their first meeting  in GA back in June, and it went surprisingly well. I got to meet quite a few people which was a great experience, and I was also voted in as Vice President of the Unit. Ralph and Barbara Shoots were nice enough to come down and give the 'little guys' pointers on the unit and chins in general. We've set up our second meeting, which we hope to have a huge turnout for. We need input for planning our first show, which will be in January sometime. This is an exciting experience since there are no Empress shows anywhere near us, and the MCBA show has been moved to FL which is quite a ways for NC breeders and chin pet owners.

The ECBC meeting will be:

September 26, 2009

Clarion Inn and Suites

50 Orchard Park Drive

Greenville, SC 1-864-254-6383

Ralph and Barbara Shoots (one of the best champion ranchers) will be attending the meeting, so if you'd like to purchase some wonderful animals and you think you could attend, contact me and I'll give you any information you may need to get in touch with them.

MCBA NY Show...

The NY show is almost here! This year the NY show will be held in Port Ewen, NY on September 19th. I plan to attend the show and show a few of my new breeders and a few I've been growing out (not of my own though). If you would like for me to bring supplies (fleece, custom) to the show, please contact me ahead of time. Also, if you would like to attend the show and need directions, contact me.

This year has been pretty positive so far.

My glider pairs have produced their first babies. I've been lucky to experience first hand raising sugar gliders and not waking up to cannibalized babies. I've had a lot of breeders warn me and I was pretty prepared. So far, three beautiful healthy babies. I plan to look for a leu soon, but I'd much rather build up the chin herd first.

My chinchilla herd has been revamped and I'm now a proud owner of a quality herd that will hopefully produce animals that will do well on the show table. I don't really have anyone paired together at the moment other than my Shoots standards, but hopefully in the next few weeks I can get the runs resituated and start intros. Hopefully I'll be swimming in babies by October, which of course is late for show season, but there's always the next year.

My hedgies still haven't produced, but I'm still crossing my fingers. I'll give it a few more months before I give up. Then, I'll seek to find new homes for my babies that don't want to mate.

By next month I plan to have another 4 breeding chinchillas if possible. I'm on the lookout for more runs, as they seem to be the best cages that work so far. If I had more room for Ferret Nation cages, I'd purchase a few more of those, but I'd be sleeping in a chair due to the lack of room.

My fleece supplies are selling fairly well. I'm spending a ton of money in fleece, but it seems well worth it. Hopefully people will continue buying from me and I can use the money to put into the herd. My chins love their fleece, and the hedgies do too. It's more expensive than pine bedding, but much prettier. I guess I'm the interior decorator for exotics, ahah.