My curly baby updates - 4 weeks old

So seeing as the babies from Lavender and Zinnia's litters turn 4 weeks old this weekend, I thought it might be nice to show off how their coats are doing. We've gotten quite a variety of coat types from these two litters too. Kaleb is going to be rex-coated through and through (the only short coat of the 6 babies!), Ace and Ambrose (both still looking for home too) are going to end up with long texel coats, Karma is probably going to be my mid-length coat, Abbie is going to be texel coated too, and Knox will be somewhere between mid-coated and texel.


Ambrose (Lavender x Romeo)

Newborn


1 week


2 weeks


3 weeks


4 weeks (photo taken today. Currently available for adoption as well)




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Ace (Lavender x Romeo)

Newborn



1 week



2 weeks



3 weeks



4 weeks (photo taken today. Currently available for adoption as well)




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Abbie (Lavender x Romeo)

Newborn



1 week



2weeks



3 weeks



4 weeks (photo taken today. Currently on hold.)



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Kaleb (Zinnia x Romeo)


Newborn



1 week



2 weeks



3 weeks



4 weeks (photo taken today. Currently on hold.)



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Knox (Zinnia x Romeo)


Newborn



1 week



2 weeks



3 weeks



4 weeks (photo taken today. Currently on hold.)



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Karma (Zinnia x Romeo)


Newborn



1 week


2 weeks



3 weeks



4 weeks (photo taken today. Staying here.)

Lavender Mist's litter

I had been keeping a close eye on Lavender lately, she just seemed to be acting a little odd. She was spending a lot of time almost sleeping on top of Zinnia and her bubs. Like one big pile of pig! Then I happened to glance out the window and noticed Lavender in the hunched over position, and knew exactly what that meant. A quick assessment of the situation found one bubs already delivered (and being cleaned by Zinnia), and one on it's way out. While I watched she then delivered the third bub. Three gorgeous, healthy and ALIVE babies! I actually think she would have been fine even if I'd missed this litter as Zinnia was such a help. More often than not any 'midwife' pigs stay away from the delivering mum, or can accidentally crush the newborns if kept in the same cage - but Zinnia did an excellent job.




Zinnia and Lavender really do seem like best friends, and a few hours later this was the gorgeous scene we found.

Lavender's litter were also fathered by Romeo, and again we got 2 boys and a girl:


Abie was first born, and was also the smallest weighing in at 65g. She's a mix of mostly gold agouti like her daddy, with a patch of white down her side.




Ace was born second. He's a classic tri-colour in black, white and gold. He weighed in at 85g.




And gorgeous Ambrose was third. He weighed in at 75g and is an incredible mix of white, gold and lilac/gold argente (lilac base with gold tips).

Zinnia's Babies, a late night surprise!

I feel like I've been checking on Zinnia every hour for the last week. And it probably has been that frequent! Last night I checked her at about 10:30pm. I was just about to go to bed. Then I got side tracked watching TV and sewing a bear I'd been working on earlier. Some noises distracted me about 11:15pm and I went to check Zinnia once again. Only this time there were three newbies in the cage! Three gorgeous, wet little bundles of curl. A quick cuddle told me that we had two boys and a girl. I gave Zinnia some extra treats to keep her energy up, tucked them up for the night then eventually went to bed myself.




And these are the gorgeous little creatures that were waiting for me in the morning. All dry and fluffy and so so cute! From left to right we have Karma (the girl), Knox (white/agouti) and Kaleb (lilac and gold).



This shows off the incredibly different colours on these bubs. I never imagined we'd get a lilac out of the pairing between Romeo and Zinnia. I was expecting lots of dark agouti and black! Little Kaleb is a real surprise.


Kaleb:


Kaleb weighed in at a very healthy 100g. He looks to have a very thick curly coat, and I'm so excited to see how this develops. Daddy (Romeo) was texel (Liam) x Rex/Texel (Ruby), and mum (Zinnia) is rex x texel x... so these bubs have a good blending of both the texel and rex genes. Fingers crossed we get the right balance for mid-length curly coats.





Karma:


Karma is the only little girl of the litter weighing in at 90g, and has stunning black and gold brindle markings to her curls. If this coat grows long, she's going to look a little like a bumblebee! Her colouring actually resembles her mum the most, and her grandfather (mum's dad).




Knox:


Knox surprised me with how much white he has in his coat. He has the white, gold agouti and gold. He too weighed in at 100g.

More updates

Two months ago, I was lucky enough to be able to give 5 beautiful sisters a new home here at the caviary - Tigerlily, Twizzle, Ivy, Zinnia and Demi. Demi has since moved out with Sheba to live with an incredible family in C&C cage comfort. But I thought I'd take some updated pics of the remaining 4 sisters. Above is Tigerlily, the only sister with the long, soft curls. She's looking stunning, and I actually have trouble telling her apart from my pedigree texel Jasmine sometimes. (Tiger's curly bum is shown below)





This is Twizzle, rex crossed with a texel x, but she looks just like a rex! The longhair gene is recessive, but from what I understand, only partly so. It appears to be possible to have an animal carrying both the short and long haired gene and be completely short haired as expected (like Twizzle), but you can also get bits of long hair showing up on the rump (like this girl), or even a coat with a bit more length than usual - (mid-length). It seems to depend on just how the genes interact with each other, and the other genetic markers. All very fascinating stuff, but is really just my convoluted way of saying that even though Twizzle and her other rex-like sisters have a recessive long-haired gene - you wouldn't know by looking at them! One of the joys and mysteries of guinea pigs!


This is Zinnia. Also very rex-like - but with a slightly different texture. Not sure what's happened genetically here, but it feels like she's gotten the softness of the texel coat, but the length/crimping of the rex coat. Her fur isn't as 'springy' to the touch as a normal rex, but I don't know if this is due to the lack of roughness, or due to the difference in the kink/curl?



And Miss Ivy - Very much like a classic little rex here!




Oh, and I just had to include these pictures of Lavender Mist and Romeo. They've become quite good friends, and make such a handsome pair. Both incredibly gentle and relaxed piggies.


Both of these two appear to have the mid-length coats. I know Romeo's genetic background (Very basic breakdown: 3/4 texel, 1/4 rex), but Lavender's is a bit more mysterious. Her parents weren't even curly haired, so somehow both the recessive curl, and a touch of longhaired genetics have snuck in there too!

You can see on the side-profile picture of Lavender, how the curls on her rump are a lot longer than the fur at the front/over her shoulders. This seems to be both a really common appearance in both the mixed long/short haired pigs, and also the curly x long pigs. Delilah also shows the same coat-length difference from shoulder to rump. Where Lavender's coat is soft and wavy (like a shorter texel), Delilah's is course and crimped (like a long-haired rex). I wonder if we have two different 'curl' genes at work here, or if the difference in the coat texture comes back to the short/long hair genes interacting differently in different animals!? So many questions to answer... lol