Kobe delivers FOUR big girls

This was the scene that greeted us this morning - a somewhat more deflated looking Kobe, and 4 big active bubs! As I scooped each one out in turn it was like a lottery draw! First one was a girl, second was a girl, third was a girl as well and unbelievable the 4th was a girl too! 

The last 4-girl litter we had born here at Sirocco was 6.5years ago - and the litter that our resident 'old girl' Custard came from. She is the last surviving sister. (so needless to say - this many sows in one litter are pretty rare!)

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This is 'Cocoa'. She has the curl like mum, and is a gorgeous dark chocolate colouring with some brindled cream and a white front foot. She has beautiful big droopy ears and will probably end up looking rex-coated like her mum.

We think that the daddy of these bubs is probably the same as the daddy to Cupcake's litter 4 weeks ago due to the incredible similarities in coat type and colouring. If this is the case, there's a *chance* of long-coats in the bubs (as the suspected daddy-pig was longhaired and one of Cupcake's bubs developed a long coat). The difference here is that Kobe appears to be pretty muchly just a short-coated pig though - she doesn't have the longer butt-fluff that Cupcake has which is the giveway that a guinea pig is carrying a recessive long-haired gene. So because of that, there was a 25% chance that Cupcake would produce a long-haired baby (or 1 in 4, which is exactly what happened).

In this litter, if Kobe doesn't have a recessive long-hair gene like Cupcake, then none of the babies will develop long hair, even if daddy pig is long-haired. Kobe's short-hair genes will over-ride the long, and the most that would happen is the bubs might get a bit of funky butt-hair like Cupcake.

So that was a very long-winded way of saying, it's more likely that this litter will be short-coated!

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This is 'Chilli' - the second curly-coated bub. She has a slightly different look to her curls, so i have a feeling there might be some rosettes in there towards her spine - a little like the ridge-back look that 'Princess' from Cupcake's litter had going on.

Chilli has the gorgeous tri-colour markings with a bit of a 'brindle' look through her rump'. I'm so curious to see how her coat develops too.

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And this little sweetheart is 'Cate'. She too is the tri-colour patterning we've become so familiar with, and has the more 'Abyssinian' look to her coat - though it's just a few scattered rosettes doing this. She is actually a lot like Poppy from Cupcake's litter as well!

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And last, but not least, we have little Clementine. She has the straight coat as well, but this time with a bit of a ridge-back look happening. Just a little flick of fur caused by a rosette near her spine. It'll be interesting to see if this gets more or less pronounced as she grows up too.