Larsen Sapphire

The history of the Larsen Sapphire stretches back to the ranch of Merle Larsen, from Indiana, USA. In early 1963 the first Sapphire was born, a pale blue chinchilla with white belly fur. Further line-breeding within the herd brought about more Sapphires and over the next two years, the animals were improved upon to increase their size and health.

It was found through breeding them that they were a simple recessive mutation, and that their colour was a dilution of the usual Standard grey colour.

Sapphires were imported into the UK in the early 1970's although they were generally a weak animal with a preponderance for health problems such as Kidney failure, malocclusion and also prone to fur chewing. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, a handful of Sapphires from Canadian stock were imported by Fred Duggins, and it is these which form the cornerstone of our Sapphire herd. These tend not to be as nervous, and also not so prone to illness and disease than the UK lines.

The Sapphire is the primary Mutation we focus on at Etherdale Chinchillas, and we have been breeding them since 1992, with some success.

The Sapphire, as has been stated, is a simple recessive Mutation, which only shows itself fully in the Homozygous state. A Heterozygous Sapphire, or a 'Sapphire Carrier' will resemble whatever the 'base' colouration the animal is which carries the single Sapphire gene. If this was a Standard, the chinchilla would look like a Standard, etc, etc

Punnet Square for

Standard Sapphire Carrier x Standard Sapphire Carrier

ss - Sapphire

sS - Sapphire

sS - Standard Sapphire Carrier

SS - Standard

EDP035 and EDP036 - Sapphire male (top) and Standard Sapphire Carrier male (bottom) from the same litter. Picture taken at 3 months old.

Sapphires are an incredibly challenging and difficult Mutation to breed. This is not because of any complex genetics, or any preponderance for illness or nervousness, but in particular due to their scarcity, high value, and poor breeding methods used by their breeders. This scarcity made them extremely valuable, and encouraged breeders to pair Sapphire-to-Sapphire to breed as many Sapphire animals as possible in order to sell them, instead of focussing on improving them as a Mutation.

In order to breed high quality Sapphires, several things need to be borne in mind. Sapphires are a very pale, diluted colour which tend to show blue. It is very easy to turn Sapphires into a dull and lifeless colour by breeding them with dull and non-clear chinchillas, so this should be avoided at all costs. You should never make the assumption that Sapphires are automatically a blue clear animal, since at times they are not, and in this state simply look like very poor quality medium Standards...

Since Sapphires are a recessive mutation, they are a challenge to breed, since you must always breed back to the Sapphire related animals you have to preserve the colouration you are after.

Sapphires also have a tendency to be small and also to have a soft fur type. Again this does not have to be the case if the best Standards are used in their breeding lines, and only the best Sapphire carriers produced selected for breeding. It is through this method of using the best Standards with our Sapphires that we have managed to breed large, blocky (excellent conformation), well-furred Sapphire carriers, which when bred together yield the best possible results in producing Sapphires.

Some might say that a mating of Sapphire Carrier to Sapphire Carrier would be wasteful, since 3/4 of the kits from this mating will not be Sapphires, and that 1/3 of the Standard looking kits will actually not carry the single Sapphire gene either. This I have found to not be the case, since if females from this mating which we refer to as 'Possible Sapphire Carriers' are then mated to full Sapphire males, over several generations their 'carrier status' can be ascertained, and all kits from this mating will definitely be Sapphire carriers anyway due to the inheritance from the male Sapphire.

In our experience, we have noted that a single Sapphire gene, giving you a Sapphire Carrier animal, tends to 'dilute' the colouration of the chinchilla, be it a Standard or otherwise, reducing the colour-phase from what should be a dark or extra-dark colour-phase to a medium or medium-dark. We have found this over the years, since the only medium colour phase Standards we produce are the Sapphire carriers, and these are bred from Sapphires mated to our best Standards, which are generally our Dark and Extra-dark Standards

In order to gain good awards with your Sapphires it is imperative that good breeding practices and husbandry are in place to make sure your Sapphire is in the best possible prime and clean, healthy condition. Just like in the Exhibition of any other chinchilla, your Sapphires need to be groomed well and presented for the show in the best possible prime.

The judge will be looking for a lovely pale-blue glow from all aspects, including a crystal-clear-white belly fur. Veiling coverage is normally very good in most Sapphires, but Size and Conformation will also be considered, since the tendency in the UK strains is that they are costina type (narrow throughout) and a little small.

We recently won Reserve Best Young Mutation (second best animal in all the 4-7 month old mutations) at the 2004 NCS National Show with a young Sapphire female, EDN068, as seen above who was in near perfect condition and prime on the day.

We also won Reserve Best In show with EDP035, the first Sapphire picture on this webpage at the West-Midlands NCS Show, 24th Oct 2004.

The Larsen Sapphire is a Mutation which generally is amongst the weakest of the show quality Mutations. It fortunately lends itself to very few Mutation combinations, which means breeders tend to focus on producing the best Sapphires, and Royal Blues as possible. Some of the different 'blends' of colour combinations are listed below;

Click on the links to see pictures where available in our 'Mutation Combinations' Section of this Website

Combination	Known as in UK	Known as in US	Description of the Combination	Seen on UK Show tables?
Black Velvet + Sapphire	Royal Blue	Royale, or TOV Sapphire	The Royal Blue is a deep dark blue coloured chinchilla, with the coverage paling to Sapphire as the Black Velvet veiling fades down towards the white belly fur. It is the paramount Sapphire mutation combination and is considered by many to be the finest coloured chinchilla mutation.	Rare
Beige + Sapphire	Beige-Sapphire	?	The likelihood is that it would resemble a pale and bluish Beige chinchilla, so would be judged in the Beige class. This animal would likely have inferior fur qualities to other Beiges which have not been bred with Sapphires.	Not seen
Wilson White + Sapphire	White-Sapphire	White-Sapphire	The likelihood is that it would resemble a bluish White chinchilla, although would likely have very poor fur quality due to the combination of these two mutations.	Not seen
Charcoal + Sapphire	Char-Sapphire, or Solid Sapphire	Solid-Sapphire, or Sapphire wrap	I can't think of any good reason to combine these two weak recessive Mutations together, but would imagine that the resultant would be a matt-dark Sapphire or matt-Royal Blue coloured chinchilla, all over it's body including it's belly fur. This chinchilla would likely have very poor fur quality due to the combination of two recessive mutations.	Not seen.
Ebony + Sapphire	Solid-Sapphire	Solid-Sapphire, or Sapphire wrap	A combination of Sapphire and Ebony, two of the weakest of the chinchilla Mutations. This animal would resemble a very dark Royal Blue colour all over it's body. This chinchilla would likely have very poor fur quality, due to the combination of recessive Sapphire and the poor quality and difficult to breed Ebony animals.	Not seen.
Violet + Sapphire	Violet-Sapphire	Violet-Sapphire???	A combination of Sapphire and Violet, two recessive Mutations which are both known as 'diluting' genes. This chinchilla will either look like a pale, blue Violet, or a violet-hued Sapphire, or a completely different Mutation colour not seen to date. My guess would be that it would look like a pale-blue Violet, and which may be indistinguishable from a pale Violet with no Sapphire. If this is the case, this Violet-Sapphire would probably get judged in the Violet class and would probably have very poor fur quality due to the combination of two recessive mutations.	Not seen.