Velociworld

Chinchilla Ranching

The ranching of the chinchilla rodent still goes on, of course, as there is always the demand for pets, and pelt. But some of you will remember the insane fad nature of chinchy ranching in the late '60's and early '70's.

This was back in the days before PETA paintgunned models, when people still recognized the fact that humans had been been wearing animal fur since they had risen erect from the primordial swamp known as Nancy Pelosi, and the wearing of such still had some panache.

But mink coats were expensive back then, and Joe Smirnoff was torn between buying that Chevelle SuperSport, or that mink coat for his harridan wife. Rabbit fur was popular, and soft, but it was extremely fluffed up, making women look retentive of the local waters.

Enter the humble rat, the chinchilla. Touted as having the softest of all furs, and being modestly priced, it was a potential gold mine for the crapulent, dissolute, capital constrained get-rich-quicker white trash. See, they figured all they needed, since they were sitting upon a bit of barren, loess-less dirt, was a few dozen of these rats, which would breed promiscuously. Then all they had to do was knock them on the head, skin them, and sell the pelts to scurrilous wholesalers driving beat to shit 1967 Olds Vista Cruisers.

This was all the rage back then, I swear. Like the ostrich/emu thing a few years back. But fur fell out of favor, farm subsidies proved more lucrative, ranchers felt the pet raising model more conducive to their inner self. But for about 8 years, eveyone was raising and clubbing those velvety little rodents.

Not that the Senator would let me. I thought he was missing a golden thing, too. But chinchilla skinners were not the sort of people he wanted around his girls, I guess. He could be such an elitist like that.