Greenwood Chinchillas
History of Chinchillas -
Ebony
As with the charcoal mutation, information regarding its development and origins is scarce and difficult to obtain. However it does appear that the modern ebony has been bred from a variety of mutations that have appeared though out the united states.
The genes that have been used to make up the ebony are generally still classed as Charcoal genes, of which there are a variety of different strains... Busse (1962 Angle Ranch), Tasco (1964 Otto Munn/Alexander, Texas), French Blue (1970, Jack French, Kansas)
Ebony genes do not work in the same way as the normal dominant and recessive that have been mentioned elsewhere - they are cumulative in their effect and do increase in depth as animals containing ebony genes are bred together. That is more than one gene pair is affecting the colour and the more ebony genes the chinchilla has - the darker the chinchilla gets, but this is not always strictly true
Since there is not just one pair of genes it is not correct to use the terms heterozygous and homozygous about ebony chinchillas. Instead it is preferable to use terms such as light, medium and dark to describe the different variations.
Ebony causes black fur all over the animals body, including a darkening of the belly fur t match the upper body fur.
Generally it is believed that the colour comes on slowly over the course of the first year, where as all other colours show on the babies pretty much as they will be when grown (other than the Black Velvet).
Another factor associated with ebony genes is a silky glossiness to the fur - this can be problematic from a showing context as the fur can often be too soft and not standing strong and firm - good breeding to quality standards is essential in order to breed quality ebonies.
Breeding of ebonies is a VERY long winded and difficult process, taking a lot of time space and money. It is essential to use high quality ebonies with a good blue cast to their fur to be bred to blue standards in order to produce lower quality ebonies that can then be crossed together in order to great offspring with more cumulative genes within them. This will hopefully over come the small stature that is generally associated with ebonies as well as remove some of the fur weaknesses that can be inherent.
For this reason Ebonies are not a breeding project that should be set upon by a beginner until they have a lot of experience with Standards and normal recessive genes.