TOV Beige / Brown Velvet Hybrid Chinchillas

(above L-R) TOV Homo Beige F, TOV Hetero Beige F, TOV Hetero Beige M

The acronym TOV stands for ‘Touch of Velvet,’ and is most correctly applied to the Gunning Black Velvet / Tower Beige hybrid chinchilla. The TOV, or TOV Beige chinchilla was the first Gunning Black Velvet hybrid. The hybrid can be either heterozygous or homozygous for the Tower Beige gene mutation. This hybrid chinchilla is sometimes referred to as a Brown Velvet.

Like the Gunning Black Velvet, the TOV Beige chinchilla can present with typical Brevicaudata characteristics. These distinguishing characteristics include short ears and tail, a distinct convex profile in the front of the head, slow maturity, and sluggish reproduction. Or, they can be closer to the typical lanigera in type and structure. If the TOV Beige chinchilla has the Brevicaudata phenotype, then breeders should be aware that some females have difficulty littering kits with the Brevi-type head. Therefore, it is better to cross a large brevi-type TOV Beige female to a quality Lanigera-type male of equal or smaller size. A brevi-type TOV Beige male, especially a large one, should only be crossed with large females with the conformational capacity to litter such kits.

Being a Gunning Black Velvet hybrid, there is also a genetic lethal factor associated with breeding the TOV Beige chinchilla to any other Gunning Black Velvet or Black Velvet hybrid.

It is possible to differentiate a TOV Beige from other beige chinchillas by looking for the white bar near the tip of the hair along the grotzen. TOV hybrid chinchillas do not have a bar.

A well bred TOV Beige chinchilla, being a combination of two strong dominant mutations, should be equal in size and structure to standard, dominant, or other dominant hybrid chinchillas. The TOV Beige / Brown Velvet should have good clarity, a bright white belly showing no creaminess, and no wrapping or ‘tip’ on the white hairs between the front legs or on the belly. Like the Gunning Black Velvet, the TOV Beige chinchilla should show complete silky textured veiling from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail with little to no break in veiling at the back of the neck or elsewhere. There should also be a distinct gradation from darker beige along the grotzen, to a lighter beige gradation between the veil and the belly, to a bright white belly. TOV Beige chinchillas may take a year or more to fully mature.

The TOV Beige / Brown Velvet can range from dark to light, with the TOV homo beige having an especially light ‘dusty’ color.

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