About

emails BFFchinchillas@gmail.com

Call or text :

Illinois: 815-922-2474

Washington: 714-745-0484

Best Friends Forever Chinchillas

located in Crystal Lake, IL and Snohomish, WA

for Illinois, text us at 815-922-2474

for Washington, text us at 714-745-0484

Tabitha (left) and Kristy (right) first met online through a chinchilla forum back in 2007, but due to being located on different sides of the country and both very young (not having the means for travel) we did not officially meet in person until 2013. From there, our friendship blossomed and turned into one of the most meaningful relationships either of us has. We fly to visit each other multiple times a year and rarely go a day without speaking to each other or messaging each other. Our kids are all great friends and our husbands are known to mingle. We have spent the better part of a decade supporting, uplifting, and encouraging each other. We decided in 2024 to take the next big step and officially combine our herds under one brand and one logo. Since we already share all of our lines in our barns, this is not a big change for us. We balance each other out nicely with Tabitha being able to make the hard decisions on culling animals from the herd as new blood is needed regularly to continue to improve our animals health and well being and Kristy makes the better decisions on choosing which kits to keep for grow outs and for breeding. Together, we are an extremely well balanced team and provide an amazing support system to each other and all our customers.

We also share other hobbies outside of chinchillas including gardening, raising some other farm animals like chicken, ducks, and geese, and we both greatly enjoy cooking and time spent with our families. Kristy has done knitting as a hobby since she was young and Tabitha recently picked up crochet for a hobby. Kristy also does a lot of embroidery, can quilt, and is an excellent sewer. Both of us enjoy a ridiculous amount of crafting and we travel frequently with our families to let our kids experience as much of the world as possible. Tabitha takes regular coastal trips to catch clam and crab and go boating with her family, while Kristy's family takes trips for snowboarding, horseback riding, site seeing, and off road vehicle activities.

Together, we are BFF Chinchillas and below you can find our individual ranch stories for where it all started for each of us. We hope you will entrust us with helping you find your new BFF!

ABC chinchillas has been breeding and showing since 1999 in McHenry, IL and surrounding areas. Kristy has produced award winning chinchillas as a member of MCBA as well as Empress. RDZC Chinchillas has been breeding since 2001 and showing since 2005 first in Southern California and now in Snohomish, WA and surrounding areas. Tabitha has produced award winning chinchillas as a member of MCBA as well as Empress. Together, we maintain our MCBA memberships and also are happy to be partners of the Global Chinchilla Alliance. We are always happy to help you find the perfect pet for you or help new breeders by providing top quality breeding stock. We are always also happy to answer question and help where ever we can

My 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 as well as their acting editor for their bimonthly magazine. I also now serve on several committees for the Global Chinchilla Alliance and am their acting editor for their monthly magazine. I also edited Shahna Thomas Powell's book on everything chinchilla which you can purchase here: Chinchillas 101

RDZC Ranch started in March of 2001 with the purchase of my 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.

My name is Kristy Morici and I began my long journey with chinchillas in 1999. My first chinchilla was a standard male from a pet store and I name him Harm for my mom's favorite TV show JAG. My next chinchilla was a beige female from a breeder in Michigan and her name was Baby. These two became my first breeding pair and they had their first baby on Christmas day. I took their first baby to a chinchilla show the next year and she got a 1B! From there I was completely hooked and wanted to breed the right way. I started purchasing quality breeding stock from reputable breeders and retired Harm and Baby from breeding to remain as my forever pets. Harm was approximately 18 when he passed away and Baby was 24 years old...they passed within a month of each other.

I started with my first sapphires around 2001 and worked tirelessly on specializing with them. My sapphires quickly became some of the highest quality available in my area and after Ryerson lost their sapphire lines in an air conditioner malfunction, they exclusively bought animals from me to rebuild what they lost. The sapphire lines that exist today and trace back to Ryerson are originally MABC lines.

In 2014, I was able to purchase the award winning Hummel herd, which was already heavily represented in my lines. While the Hummel herd was known for outstanding standards and black velvet, he also bred ebony, beige, and a handful of whites.

I have produced multiple grand show champions over the years and champion animals from before and after I purchased the Hummel herd. Today, my focus remains heavy on sapphires and standard, I have produced champions of nearly every color for chinchillas and animals I've sold have gone on to produce grand show champions.

While my start in chinchillas was a simple pet store sterling grey, it quickly spiraled into a life long obsession with these cute little rodents.