About Me
I got my first pet chins in the fall of 2006. I joined the online forum Chins-N-Quills (which is now Chins-N-Hedgies) to meet other chinchilla owners and share stories, photos, and information about my new little critters. It did not take very long for me to fall in love with the photos of kits being posted in the Breeding & Babies section and I decided that I, too, would like to breed.
It was important to me to start out right, however. This meant buying pedigreed breeding stock from reputable breeders, attending a show to see what qualities I ought to be breeding for, and researching the methods of breeding chinchillas as well as what could go wrong.
I attended my first show as a spectator in April of 2007. I talked to other breeders and watched them groom their animals, learning as much as I could. I stayed for the whole show and left with my foundation breeding stock – a sapphire male and a standard female. My pair had their first litter in October that year.
Over the next two years, I slowly added more breeding animals to my herd but was still breeding sapphires exclusively. While my sapphire carriers were doing well at the shows, I realized I would need to work with pure standards in order to compete for the higher awards in the standard section, as well as work with more mutations to better compete for a breeder award. In late 2009, I brought black and beige to my herd and followed with white in 2010.
As of 2011, I have had blacks, beige, and sapphires move to the top of the table, earning me first place Bob Myers breeder award at the 2011 Atlantic Chapter Show.
2011 Bob Myers Breeder Award Winners: Mish Irish, Monika Grogan, Cheryl Robertson, Tiffany Yarboro, and Bill of Silkrhein Chinchilla. Photo courtesy of Jim Silko.
I continue to focus on sapphires (with sapphire lines taking up over half my herd) and someday hope to win the sapphire breeder award at the National Show. I am currently the president of the MCBA’s Atlantic Chapter, and I plan to begin training for MCBA judge next year.
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Contact
Email: mishirish@yahoo.com – please put “chinchilla” in the subject line so I don’t automatically delete it.
AIM: mishalaa
Yahoo Messenger: mishirish – please add a message about chinchillas in the friend request so I accept it.
No phone calls, please.
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My Other Pets
NONE of which have any contact with the chinchillas!
