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Meet the OwnerMy name is Tabitha Lindsay and I began my long journey with chinchillas in March of 2001. My love for chinchillas only grew stronger when I attended my first chinchilla show in 2005 and then immediately joined Empress Chinchilla Breeders. After joining, I quickly became active in my branch and after 2 years I became the impromptu show chair when my close friend fell ill and she could no longer perform her duties. I acted as show chair in the 2007-2008 show season, then again from 2010-2011 and I also served as the president of the California Group from 2009-2011. I continued to serve as president of the Greater Southern California Branch through 2014, until I relocated to a cooler climate. I also served as the webmaster for the Empress website from 2013-2015. My ranch is now located near Seattle, Washington in the great Pacific Northwest! While I appreciated my time with Empress, I am now a proud member of the Mutation Chinchilla Breeders Association and president of the West Coast Branch.
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RDZC Ranch |
RDZC Ranch is now a small ranch of around 100 chinchillas. I breed for high quality standards, Lowe Recessive White, Locken, and Violet but I also have a few beige, black velvet, ebony, mosaic, pink white, sapphire, and blue diamond breeders in the herd.
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Our History |
RDZC Ranch started in March of 2001 with the purchase of my very first pet chinchilla, Jewel, a standard grey. I quickly fell in love with my beautiful girl and before long, I was looking to get her a friend. Chinchillas had barely been on the pet market for 10 years at this point, so information on them was few and far between in 2001. I was able to find a few websites with different color mutations of chinchillas and quickly fell in love with black velvets. I found a black velvet male and bought him as a companion for Jewel. Roughly four months later, there was a small baby standard male running around the cage like a maniac. I fell madly in love with the adorable miniature chinchilla in the cage and my addiction began. I quickly grew to having around 20-25 chinchillas of all different colors and spent a lot of time at a hobby breeder's house to learn more.
In 2005, I attended my first chinchilla show against the advice of my hobby breeder "mentor." I found a new world of chinchillas and realized the animals I was breeding were not quality that should be bred. I quickly severed ties with the hobby breeder, finding out quickly that much of her practices were not in the best interests of the animals. Breeding for healthy, pedigreed, quality animals became my goal. I sold many of my original breeding animals to pet homes and kept several, including Jewel, as loving pets through the rest of their lives. I began purchasing quality animals from ranchers across the US including Bowen, Somavia, Shoots, Diamond Blue, and Furball. I was lucky to be on the west coast and mentored by some of the greatest names in the chinchilla industry. Since my journey began, I have produced several Grand Show Champions, several Reserve Grand Show Champions, and numerous Class and Reserve Class Champions. The foundation of my herd are high quality standards as they should be for any herd that strives for improvement and quality above novelty colors. The focus of my herd has shifted in recent years to pursue quality production of some newer mutations. Lowe Recessive White, also known as Goldbar, is our primary focus. This newer mutation has a beautiful goldish sheen to the coat and I often compare their appearance to white gold. My Lowe lines are currently the only lines in the US consistently placing 1st at chinchilla shows and even taking Class Champion and Reserve Class Champion. Due to the exceptional high quality of this mutation and my continuous efforts at improvement, we rarely have this mutation available. |
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