Our very special sow 'Blessing' is now 5 months old (tomorrow actually). She has been specifically bred here at Sirocco Cavy stud to have the characteristics of the sheba guinea pig (long straight coat, lots of rosettes making the coat lift up in all directions), but with curls. This is NOT a standardized breed here in Australia (not sure about the rest of the world), and we're playing with the idea of calling the breed 'Angora' cavies, or 'Angora Mini Yak' - in homage to their Sheba Mini Yak ancestry.
Blessing was born back in August 2012 to a sheba x texel mum, and a texel dad. She and her sister 'Bambi' are just the VERY FIRST examples of this new breed that we have been able to produce. Due to the nature of the genetics at play, it's purely a matter of luck getting all the components to line up in a mating. We will need to produce many more generations, and to bring more rosetted parents into the mix to breed out the 'texel' component - but we're so happy with our initial results, that I think this breed is going to be worth the effort.
We've been documenting the coat growth over the last 5 months with regular photo updates. I find this especially fascinating to go back through:
5 days old:
11 days old:
19 days old:
4 weeks old:
7 weeks old:
10 weeks old:
4 months old:
5 months old:
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