About Albatross Chinchillas
Albatross Chinchillas are looked after by Dick and Heather Green, chinchilla owners since 1990, and members of the National Chinchilla Society (and its fore-runner the CFBA) since 1992.
Dick is currently learning the ropes to become a full NCS judge and hopes to qualify in 2007. He will be attending three shows as judge under instruction (and we will be unable to show animals at these shows), then will take an exam and hopefully be asked to judge a show during the 2007/8 season.
Heather has recently completed her 2 year course - HND in Animal Management with a Distinction grade, and is working one day a week at Mid-Kent College in Chatham, Kent teaching various Animal Care modules, and also has a part time job as Veterinary Services Manager working for the Lord Whisky Animal Sanctuary in Rhodes Minnis, Kent, where she is about to launch a new mobile low income veterinary clinic which will travel to several places in South Kent.
Dumpy, a medium standard grey, was our first chinchilla (see Our Chinchillas section) and was purchased from the local pet shop in May 1990 with no knowledge of how to look after him. He lived in a converted parrot cage and was fed all sorts of unhealthy treats but survived to tell his tale.
The late Boo was the second chinchilla to arrive, again from a pet shop, a rare Blue Slate mutation, but she hated Dumpy, and so Demi, a beige female, arrived from a pet breeder, to be his companion. This was our first introduction to the problems of malocclusion and she had to be put to sleep at a young age due to root elongation.
Dick found that two of his work colleagues were chinchilla breeders, and so we soon became involved in showing and improving the quality of our animals, learning much about genetics and husbandry along the way. We are indebted to the late Robinsons – Janet & Derek ‘Rick’ for their advice, their entire ranch of animals after the death of Janet, and for passing on the love of the striking violet and ultraviolet mutations, the quality of which we continually aim to improve.
We must also mention our great friends Lyn & Ron Gardner, whom Dick has known for so very many years working for the gas industry, and for their help throughout our showing and breeding years.
We chose the name Albatross for our ranch name, as most people were known in the show world by their surname – and Green Chinchillas just caused so much amusement with people trying to discover if there really were green coloured chinchillas! Albatross comes from Dick’s company name at the time, and from that beautiful piece of music by Fleetwood Mac.
In 1993 we had problems when a visit by animal rights activists attempted to break into our unit and release all the chinchillas into the wild (they believed that no animal should be caged, but did not stop to think of the consequences of their intended release). Luckily they failed in their attempt, and this resulted in the arrival of Layla and Bianca our two much missed German Shepherds (see Our Dogs section), as chinchilla guardians and family members.
We also breed German Shepherds under the Dandhgreen Kennel Club affix, and more details can be found in the dog section.
During our 14 years of showing chinchillas we have won one grand show champion award with a brown velvet (Champ is currently in breeding and offspring may occasionally be available), and five Reserve Show Champions (Blue our ultraviolet, and Little Ron our dark standard, both of which were National Show Reserve Show Champions, and Holly a black-white cross, and our most recent award winner, are also in breeding and their offspring are being reserved via a waiting list).
With it becoming increasingly more difficult to sell show quality, healthy animals in this area, we have cut down on our breeding program considerably for the time being, and this will continue until there is an upturn in the market, as we do not wish to add to the chinchilla “mountain” that exists in the many rescue centres around the country.
We will continue to progress and research the genetics of our violet, black-white cross and Canadian standard lines, and these will be the main animals seen on the show bench in the forthcoming season.
