Labeling Colors

Wanted to touch on something real quick.  This is come up (in my mind) because we've had so many white / mosaic chinchillas come in lately, that we've had to get more descriptive when listing them. 

I remember when there was another breeder in Indiana who used to list a lot of their chinchillas as "panda mosaics" -- for them, this was a selling term, and a reason to "up" the prices on those chinchillas.  A regular mosaic may have been $175, a panda mosaic was $200.  In the chinchilla world... that's more or less unethical.  A mosaic is a mosaic.  Don't get me wrong, some people may be willing to pay more for a chinchilla that is all white.  Or one that has radical markings.  But in general, both genetically and otherwise... it's still a mosaic, and there's no real difference between an all white chin, one with spots, a silver mosaic, and so on.  All mosaics.

So the reason I bring this up is because I was listing chinchillas today, and noticed that I listed one as a predominantly white mosaic, another as having a saddle stripe, and another as having a silvery face.  None of these chins are listed this way to suggest that one is more valuable than any other, they are simply descriptive terms.  You may notice, the prices of all these chins are the same. 

The thing is, we need descriptive terms when we don't have names.  Most owner surrenders come in with names, which is why most of our older chins can easily be differentiated.  But we still run into people, occasionally, who call us up and say they want the adult male standard grey chin.  Ok, which one?  Often we have multiple.  Same for the mosaics.  Someone says they want the mosaic female, we have two.  Mosaic male?  We have four.  If people can call up and say, oh the one with the spot... that helps.  We know which one to put on hold and have here for them when they come to adopt.  But that's all it is.

Just in case anyone was wondering.