Different Breeds of Guinea Pigs (A Breeders view)

[Lucy+Lilly]

Holy crap! No wonder pigs have such varying colors!

[Jennicat]

I liked that explanation, salana. It gave me a mental image of pig genetics as being fueled by the lemmings from the old video game "Lemmings".

[salana]

I like to think of it as little machines, some of which have busted parts, and they're all connected to some kind of network that sends them signals.

[WHEEKness]

Salana, great explanation. Love it. Love piggy genetics. E, yes, the relationship between silver and golden agouti is very cool. I used to teach middle school genetics, and my pigs are definitely coming to school for the genetics unit next time I teach it.

[maremma]

Now don't foget the part where I am completely genetics illiterate, especially with guinea pig genetics.

Did I understand correctly that the eye color comes from the same genes as the different hair colors or are they a completely different set of genes at work?

Where did Snowangel and Cuddler's blue eyes come from? Snowangel is all white and Cuddler is orange and white. Were they "suppose" to be black eyes but something "went wrong"? Most of my babies have black eyes, two have the pink eyes, Cocoa (lilac?) and Joey (white, cream and a seemingly very light lilac?) and of course two have blue eyes.

[WHEEKness]

Salana, great explanation. Love it. Love piggy genetics. E, yes, the relationship between silver and golden agouti is very cool. I used to teach middle school genetics, and my pigs are definitely coming to school for the genetics unit next time I teach it.

[salana]

I don't think anyone knows where the blue eyes come from. Or where Suzi's blue sclera (the whites of her eyes) come from.

[JaneDoe]

Suzi looks angelic.

[rshevin]

Now, I'm sure you've already done this salana, but does Suzi have any problems with her bones or with urinary calcium? Pubmed shows "blue sclera" to be associated strongly with the disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta in humans. I was just curious, had to check!

[dellybean]

Hi guys, sorry I've been MIA. I've been on vacation/camping/not around Internet. And I just switched jobs, so that's why my e-mail bounced back. I'll change it right now.

Based on Josephine's description, I think Wishes is a dilute agouti, though he has brownish/greenish hazel eyes; they're definitely not pink. I think he falls into the "beige" category of color. His belly band is a light cream color.

Most of my pictures of him can be found on this page: http://www.pbase.com/dellybean/guinea_pig

Here's a closeup of his eye when he was tiny: http://www.pbase.com/dellybean/image/73781255

You're welcome to use any pictures of him you'd like, Josephine.

[salana]

Suzi has had small amounts of bladder calcium. It's interesting about the blue sclera being associated with bone problems. Mice with Einy-like problems and busted tfe3 genes on top of that, have terrible bone problems. Of course they found that out by breeding all these problems into the mice.

[Josephine]

Thank you!