Sullivan Violet

The history of the Sullivan Violet started back in 1960 in Rhodesia (now South Africa). An American chinchilla rancher called Lloyd Sullivan, on a visit to Rhodesia in 1975 spotted this new Mutation, and promptly purchased the herd. At the time, trade embargos prevented any trading between the UK and America to Rhodesia, so the chins were transported into Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the back of an ox cart, hidden under some chickens. From Rhodesia they flew on to Nigeria, Johannesburg in South Africa, and on to Frankfurt, West Germany. From here they then made their way to Los Angeles, and onto the Lloyd Sullivan ranch at Oakhurst, California. Lloyd showed the first Violet in 1967, and his name has become synonymous with their introduction to the chinchilla world.

The Sullivan Violet is a lilac/Violet hued chinchilla, which possesses an Agouti fur type with white bar, and white belly fur. It is a dilute gene similar to the Sapphire, and when bred, was found to be a simple recessive Mutation, also akin to the Sapphire. Violets come in all sorts of colour phases from a very light lilac through to a dark Violet colour.

Violets were first introduced to the UK by an importation of Violets from Canada by Fred Duggins, in the late 1980's and early 1990's. At this time they were of good fur quality and fur type, although tend to be narrow through the shoulders. Their popularity at first was extremely high and they sold for very high prices, which lead to breeders pairing Violet-to-Violet, which ultimately made the quality level drop.

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

When breeding Violets, there are several factors and aspects of them which should be considered. Violets in the UK are generally a weak mutation, being small, narrow through the shoulders (quite wedge shaped)and relatively weakly furred. A tendancy on UK show tables recently has been the exhibition of steely-grey coloured Violets, which have lost their lustre and vivid Violet hue; primarily because they have been bred without using clear, blue Standards. The colour phase of a Violet should not and does not matter, but you must, as in all show chinchillas, pay great credence to clarity and blueness in order to keep them the correct and attractive colour.

Violets, being a simple recessive Mutation like the Sapphire, are challenging to breed since a breeder must constantly outcross to Standards, and then linebreed back to Violet stock to keep the Violet colouration.

The temptation when Violets first entered the UK some 15 or so years ago was to pair two of them together, thereby producing 100% Violet kits, in order to breed and sell them to the new market, and to pay back the large costs of the initial animals. The problems this lead to was that the quality crashed over the next few years, and it is taking much effort by a few dedicated breeders in order to bring the quality back to it's rightful state.

The best way to produce quality Recessive Mutations is to breed them to top quality Standard animals which possess all the attributes you want to see i your Violets. The best way to do this is to cross your Violets to the best possible Standards to breed Violet Carriers, select the best of these, and cross them together. This will mean only 1 in 4 babies born from a Violet Carrier x Violet Carrier mating are actually Violets, but they should be strong, healthy, and possess the characteristics you are selecting for.

Violets are renowned as being of excellent Veiling Coverage, so much so that some breeders often use them with their Black Velvets in order to improve their Black Velvet's veiling coverage. As has been indicated above, the tendency recently is that we see many steely-grey Violet chinchillas, which are not attractive and do not have the lustre and vivid Violet hue.

Violets often are quite arrow through the shoulders, but possess a very fine textured fur type, which unfortunately is prone to weakness. A good example of a Violet is a beautiful chinchilla, and there were many Violet show champions in the early years after their importation.

Care must be taken when judging Violets to look closely at their clarity. A good trick to check this is to look at the underfur of the Violet chinchilla, or more specifically, the white triangle of fur just in front of their hind leg (when settled). Any yellowness, dullness or creamyness is an indication of poor clarity of colour.

The Sullivan Violet is a Mutation which generally is the strongest of the recessive Mutations, but is still not as strong as Beige, Black Velvet and Wilson White from a show perspective. It fortunately lends itself to very few Mutation combinations, which means breeders tend to focus on producing the best Violets and Ultra-Violets. 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 + Violet	">Ultra-Violet	TOV Violet	Ultra Violets are darker versions of the Violet animal, due to the combinationn with the Black Velvet gene. They possess characteristics of the Black Velvet such as paw spats and a roman nose, and have white belly fur. Depending on the colour phase of Violet used to breed them, they can be of similar colour phase to dark Violets.	Seldom
Beige + Violet	Beige-Violet	?	Beige-Violets are a relatively new mutation on UK show tables, and resemble Beiges with a slightly different hint or tinge. They are predominantly Beige in phenotype and so would be judged as a Beige.	Rarely
Wilson White + Violet	White-Violet	White-Violet?	White-Violets are a relatively new mutation on UK show tables, and resemble Wilson Whites with a very slight Violet hue. They tend to have poor fur quality, and would be exhibited in the Wilson White class.	Not seen.
Ebony + Violet	Solid Violet	Solid Violet, or Violet Wrap	A Solid Violet would be a chinchilla which resembled a Violet, but was this colouration all over it's body; an infulence from the Ebony genes. These mutations have not appeared on UK show tables but it is expect that they will have poor fur qualities, due to the double combination of recessive genes, and the weak nature of the Ebony and Sapphire Mutations.	Not seen
Charcoal + Violet	Char-Violet, or Solid-Violet	Solid-Violet, or Violet Wrap	A Char-Violet would be a chinchilla which resembled a matt textured Violet, and was this colouration all over it's body; an infulence from the matt-grey colouration of the Brouke Charcoal genes. These Mutations have not appeared on UK show tables but it is expected that they will have poor fur qualities, due to the double combination of recessive genes.	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, which may be indistinguishable from a pale Violet with no Sapphire present. 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.