Greenwood Chinchillas
(Joyce Garvey's ribbon winning Young Black Velvet, Napton, Nov 02. Pic by Liz Benson)
Showing Black Velvets
The criteria for showing Black Velvets in the UK are the same as those for all chinchillas (see Criteria), however there are a few additional piece of information that may proves useful.
When assessing fur clarity and looking at the cast of the fur, the judge is still looking for a good clear blue sheen across the top of the fur (this is more easy to see in natural daylight or using specialist daylight tubes as used on the show benches).
If the animal is not Blue Black, then the next most preferable colour is black black. This would be the black colouration of the animals but without the additional blue sheen over the fur.
A colour cast to the tips of the fur that appears brown black is to be avoided at ALL costs. Many Black Velvets bred in Europe and America may have this as they do not judge blueness within their Black Velvets.
Some older animals may appear to have a brown cast as they age - but this could be due to oxidisation of the fur.
Black Velvets with a brown cast to their fur as youngsters are generally created because the parents were not selected carefully, and therefore come down to bad breeding! It is very easy to lose the blueness from your animals but it takes a lot of pairings to good standards with blueness to get it back in to future generations!
Animals carrying other recessive mutations such as violet or sapphire are unlikely to do well in a class of black velvets as this recessive colouration can affect the quality of the fur and the blueness of the colour.
For show quality Black Velvets it is best to ALWAYS breed a GOOD quality "blue" standard to a good quality "blue" black velvet. To try any other pairing is likely to lose the blue quality that we are so striving to create.
Back Velvet kits are generally born with the mask and other mutation fur showing quite darkly, as they grow this can disappear a lot in the first few weeks, then starts to grow back in from about 10 weeks onwards. For this reason it is not recommended to show young Black Velvet kits as their colouration will not be at its best as it intensifies and solidifies as they grow.
In many case the best age to show Black Velvets is 8-15 months - older than when many of the other colour mutations are at their best.