Meadow x Ashers's three boys

Meadow - mumma pig (above), and Asher - daddy pig (below) produced three stunning silver and cinnamon agouti boars, born 1st July 2013.

We have 'Hamish' a silver agouti and white curly-coated sheba boar. Harry a cinnamon agouti and white texel-coated boar and Heath, also cinnamon agouti but sheba-coated.

Really gorgeous babies. But, as the most observant readers might have noticed, we've decided to close the curly-sheba experiement. The 'breed/look' is quite spectacular, but in my opinion it's not different enough to 'alpaca' pigs to warrant it's own standard. Maybe if someone was able to continue on the experiement and source foundation stock with a much courser coat we might get something that looks distinctly different to alpacas. But for the most part the soft Australian curl is too heavy for the rosetting once the animal gets to 10-12months old, and the hair falls much the same way it would if there were only the two rump rosettes - defeating the purpose!

Here are some of our current examples of the breed/look - Blessing was by far the closest we got to producing a pig with tousled, curly long hair that stuck out in all directions - but she too has ended up with quite a flat look as she's nears her first birthday.

Bambi (below) has great density, but again the curl was too heavy and even at 7 months old the coat was laying flat. And Sarabi (far below) was showing great promise at 3 months old, but has also ended up with long silky curls that fall more like an alpaca.

It's a bit sad, as I've had a lot of fun working with this idea. One of the most important steps in starting a new variety of cavy is to make sure it is different enough to be recognised against other already established breeds though - and I just don't think this is the case. Yet.

As such, we will be finding new homes for our stunning curly-coated sheba pets. We have a few pigs listed on our available page at the moment, with more added as the last of our litters are born over the next few months. I would be more then happy to pass on all of my documentation/ancestry to anyone looking to continue playing with this breed - but am also happy to just see these guys end up as gorgeous, pampered pets.

And because a 'birth' post isn't right without proper pics of the bubs in question, here are Hamish, Harry and Heath's individual photos. These really are pretty little men! :)