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The CH (Or Swiss) Teddy The Swiss (CH) teddy is not really a new breed, to call it so would be an insult to the many people in Europe that have been developing it for many years. But in England, it is a new breed, having to my knowledge just 4 … in my shed. I have been asked to write an article about them, but please be advised I am still learning myself! I fell in love with the CH teddy in 1996 but at the time was told ‘they don’t exist here’ and quarantine rules being what they were it wasn’t possible to bring any in. Then I heard in March 2005 that quarantine on piggies was finished, so while still extremely expensive, it was possible to bring some in. We all have to do things that scare us now and again so my bank balance took a hammering and my 4 Swiss Teds arrived. All of them have a 4-generation pedigree and are pure Swiss teddy. Swiss teddies are referred to as both ‘Swiss’ and ‘CH’ both referring to the fact that they originated in Switzerland. But they are now quite common all over Europe. Their basic look is ‘bundle of fluff’. The ideal coat is said to be around 6cm in length (on an adult pig naturally) and standing erect. The coat stands erect, as it is incredibly dense. When I got my little herd I couldn’t believe just how dense the coat is, on a good Swiss (CH) teddy the coat doesn’t flop or part (as it would on a longhair). My Swiss teddies came from Germany, via Denmark from 2 different breeders and I have gleaned some interesting facts from talking to these breeders. Learning from mistakes basically. My first mistake was to call them a ‘Semi Longhair’. They asked then if I would call the Abyssinian a Semi Longhair, the answer of course was no and I was told they are no more related to longhairs than the Aby is. My second mistake was to ask if I was to want to breed carriers, should I breed them to longhairs in order to keep the coat length. The reply was emphatic and firm, NO, NEVER, NOT AT ALL, DON’T YOU DARE lol. I got the idea this wasn’t approved of. Apparently when mated to longhairs you will get the result of long hair at the back and short at the front. This makes sense when I remember the crossbred pets I have had in the past. Again the Aby was used as an example ‘would you mate an Aby to a Peruvian to get good Abys?’ No of course I wouldn’t!. I was told that realistically Carriers are not possible with the Swiss Teddies, but if I absolutely had to, use short-coated cavies. This brought me to my next question, Rex Gene? Or Teddy Gene? The answer was ‘neither’ it’s a third curly gene! , But I know some in the UK feel its Rex and some Teddy, so I have decided to have a trial, mating a Teddy sow to one Swiss teddy boar and a Rex sow to the other. That way I should get a definitive answer. One of the sows is due in a matter of weeks, the other slightly later. I will keep you updated.. So you have seen the pictures and think ‘yeah I would like to take those up. Great, contact me. I wont have any stock for some time but I can put you in touch with some people overseas who could help you I am sure BUT if you are looking for an easy breed, forget it. The hair is so dense and so mats easily, so that means combing through on a daily basis. If you get a mat is has to be cut out, thus ruining the coat for around 6 months. In breeding the coats vary greatly, (although of course this is not unusual in most coated breeds, you can get poor coated Rex or Longhairs), the boars tend to have the better coats and the breed is still very much in development. I was lucky to get a fantastic boar, Crusade & a very good boar Indiana but the 2 sows have taken some time to develop and are much shorter coated than their husbands. With good food and care their coats have improved, which leads me to believe that coats depend on care as well as breeding, not enough attention (or too much stress in the case of my sows, travelling from Germany to Denmark & then on to England and thus not being ‘settled) and you will get poor coats. It is said that the best time to show a Swiss Teddy is around 4 to 6 months. As the rough coat moults out in youngsters leaving the soft and ‘frizzly undercoat’. After this age the rough coat grows back in (although usually better than when they were young) causing some unevenness in the coat No doubt there will be some that call them fluffy pets, some that say they are scruffy, and many more that will say ‘but we have a teddy, they cant be a teddy’ but to them I would point out we have English Crested & American Crested. So why not English Teddy & Swiss Teddy. They are very different to look at so you couldn’t muddle them up! And personally I think it would be a big insult to their creators, the Swiss, to change the name of a long-term breed. Others will say their coat variation is too great, but look at pet shop quality Longhairs, Rex, Teddy, Abys, they do exist, they just don’t get shown, and so it will be with the Swiss Teddy, the best must be bred for and worked at, no cavy breed is ‘instant perfection’ and personally I like the challenge. I have a lot to learn about the Swiss (CH) teddy but the fact is I brought them in because I have loved them for a long time. The reception to them here (photos) seems to have been good on most parts. It would be great if they are accepted as a new breed and go on to get a standard but if they don’t I would still keep them. Their characters are amazing, incredibly cheeky and laid back. They are just lovable little fuzz balls, and my heart has been completely taken with them Update (23/01/06) As stated in the above article I did some test mating. Well one of the matings has now been born. Kandy, a pure bred English teddy (not bred from carriers) was mated to Crusade, a pure bred Swiss Teddy. Kandy had 4 babies last night, all of which are smooth coated, no kinks or curls in site. One baby is white and 3 are orange and white, they are very cute and seem very healthy. Please find some photos below :0) So now we just have to wait for my Rex sow Sparkle to have her bubbies.....The Swiss Teddies are obviously genetically NOT teddies but are they Rex, or are they a different gene altogether ??? Update (10/02/2006) They have arrived !!! As you know I decided I needed to
know whether the Swiss Teddy was the English teddy gene, or the Rex gene Update 03/03/2006 Sonne, one of my Swiss Teddy sows gave birth a week ago, I did not post this straight away as I didnt want to 'count my chickens' but the babies seem healthy and well. I have called the 'Cookies Hagrid' (the paler one) and 'Cookies Hope', and this is their photo taken a few days after birth
As you can see at present they are short coated and both have 'crests' Not ideal for the standard but it seems many do have them hidden under all that fluff lol. I will be posting photos as they grow to show how the coat comes along
10 days old Update (28th July 2006) I just noticed how long it has been since I updated this page, wow, how time flies Ok what has been happing with the Swiss Teddies, well the babies grew, some had great coats, some not so good, what amazed me most was the variations in the litters. Some of my babies have been out and about on the show scene and people are getting more used to seeing (and judging) these balls of fluff. Pleasingly they seem to be getting a good reception, and have received positive press in Cavies magazine.
Crusade has also been out and about at cavy care displays promoting guinea pigs as a whole, he is an attention loving softie, a trait that seems common in Swiss Teddies I imported some more stock from Sweden (thanks my friends) and have continued to breed the Swiss Teddies recently having 2 litters, one containing the most unusually coloured baby I have seen in a while, I cant wait to see how he grows up
The Swiss I first saw Swiss, or CH teddies as they were called then, more than 10 years ago in Europe . I fell in love at first site, little bundles off fluff, but at the time quarantine restrictions prevented me importing them. 2004 however bought a relaxation in the quarantine rules making it possible, if expensive, to bring some in. I started making enquiries and in October 2004, and thanks to some very kind and helpful Danish fanciers my first Swiss arrived in England from Germany. Four bouncing, placid, fluffballs with springs on their feet. They were followed in April 2005 by another batch from Sweden, and so my Swiss stud was formed. I started to show them soon after to get the breed ‘out and about’ and ‘seen’ and the interest has been immense, because love them or hate them, you cant ignore them. The swiss stand out. My waiting list for stock now numbers more than 20 people and still I get more enquiries. I now have grandchildren of the original stock, and so I thought I would pen an article on them, to answer some questions I have been asked So What are the Swiss, what do they look like? The Swiss have coats of around 6cm in length , it is curly, plush and yet soft, and its unique feature is that it stands straight up. This makes them a ball of fluff, no parting, just one big powder puff. They tend to be large cavies, my Crusade was the largest cavy I have ever owned in 13 years of breeding cavies. How were they created ? The answer to that is…..I don’t know, it was a genetic mutation. No one took one breed and mated it to another and thought ‘hey cool babies I will do that again’ To say that the Swiss is new breed in incorrect and an insult to the many people in Europe that have been developing it for many years. My Swiss have pedigrees going back over 7 generations, and as I said I saw them 10 years ago, they are true breeding. I will also point out here one misconception, they are NOT longhaired teddies. In fact they are not the teddy gene at all. To satisfy my own curiosity I mated a Swiss to a teddy and a swiss to a rex, just to see which gene they were……….the answer was neither!! All babies were smooth haired. They say there are actually 9 ‘rexoid’ genes, so I guess the swiss is one of them, but they certainly are not Rex, or Teddy I have seen them called Swiss Teddies or CH Teddies, why do you call them Swiss? Well the teddy part is because of the above, they are not teddies. The teddy is still a fairly new breed in the UK, and the last thing that either Swiss breeders or Teddy breeder’s want is for breeders that know no differently to start mating them together. There is no point and it is ‘mixing genes’ and detrimental to both breeds. Therefore I would propose we drop the ‘teddy’ part of the name in the UK. As far as the ‘CH’ goes, this is just an abbreviation to Switzerland. In the UK if we travel abroad we have a ‘GB’ sticker on the back of the car, in Switzerland they have ‘CH’, so ‘CH’ just means Swiss How and where do you show them ? Where, well most shows now put on a ‘New Emerging Variety’ Class, and this is where they belong for the time being. As for ‘how’ after much getting covered in shavings it was decided that it would be best to show them as a longhair is, on a board. I use a slicker brush to get the coat sitting right for judging. They don’t need wrapping at home as the coat is just the right length not to get pee’d on , but they do need regular brushing to prevent mats and to keep the skin healthy. If you are showing them you must, as per the RVCC, provide the secretary in advance with some information on your aims for the breed, otherwise how does the judge know what to judge ?? So what are their problems ? Of course there are problems, what breed doesn’t have problems, especially coated breeds ! Swiss have a tendency to grow longer at the back than the front, but what we are working on is an even coat all over, and I do have about 50% of my cavies of this type. Swiss are unpredictable when it comes to what the babies turn out like so you need to run them on for quite some time, or you may end up keeping the wrong ones. Equally some stay very short, but these tend to have excellent even coated babies, so you have to have quite a mixed bag in the shed. We also have to make sure we don’t inbreed, Swiss as a whole and healthy and very big cavies, it would be a shame to lose that health just for the sake of a short cut to a better coat What about breeding ? Two facts I learnt very quickly were do NOT mate to Teddies or Rex and do NOT mate to longhairs, this just does not help the breed in any way. The best option of course is Swiss x Swiss but it is acceptable to mate to smooth coated short haired cavies of any colour. You will get carriers which should then be mated back to a Swiss. I have not actually had to do this thus far so I can’t tell you how they turn out. I hope that has helped to answer a few questions about this wonderful breed, there are to my knowledge around half a dozen breeders in the UK, some with larger studs than others, so I am sure you will be seeing these balls of fluff around, and if anyone sees me with mine, and would like a closer look, feel free to ask, I am only too happy to show them off
The Swiss by Heather Henshaw
The Swiss cavy is, as far as I am aware, a unique breed. They cannot be ‘created’ by crossing one breed with another. They are, as were the Rex, a genetic mutation. They are also not a new breed. To call them that would be an insult to the people in Europe who have been working with the breed for over a decade. They are just new (at the time I write this article) to the UK and in my mind they are a very welcome newcomer. Their numbers are already swelling in England with at least 4 serious breeders now having a ‘stud’ and many more having ‘one or two’. At shows they are welcomed, they certainly cannot be confused with any other breed, when you see a Swiss, you know it’s a Swiss! The Swiss have coats of around 6cm in length. It is slightly crimped, plush and yet soft and its unique feature is that it stands straight up. This makes them a ball of fluff, no parting, just one big powder puff. The coat will grow to a length of around 6cm and then stop. It is difficult to explain how the coat feels but it is not like the Rex or the Teddy, I am told they feel like the lionhead rabbit or even the angora, but not being into rabbits I wouldn’t know. They tend to be large cavies, strong and healthy and good breeders. The Swiss are true breeding, mate Swiss to Swiss and you will get Swiss. Of course the coat quality within the litter will vary, as with any coated breed you get good un’s and not so good un’s.
One misconception is that they are longhaired Teddies, they are NOT. In fact they are not the Teddy gene at all. To satisfy my own curiosity I mated a Swiss to a teddy and a swiss to a rex, just to see which gene they were……….the answer was neither!! All babies were smooth haired. They say there are actually 9 ‘rexoid’ genes, so I guess the Swiss is one of them, but they certainly are not Rex or Teddy. Nor are the Swiss ‘longhairs’. To call them longhaired would be to calle the Abyssinian longhaired too, they are ‘coated’. Two facts I learnt very quickly with the Swiss were ~ 1) Do NOT mate to Teddies or Rex and ~ 2) Do NOT mate to longhairs, this just does not help the breed in any way. In the former case you will just get smoothed haired babies and there is a danger of not knowing which gene is where. In the second case, breeding to longhairs, this would just cause the difference in length to become more exaggerated and we are trying to breed away from that. The best option of course is Swiss x Swiss but it is acceptable to mate to smooth coated short haired cavies of any colour. You will get carriers which should then be mated back to a Swiss. I have not actually had to do this thus far so I can’t tell you how they turn out. As with any coated breed there are challenges. As I mentioned above the Swiss have a tendency to grow longer at the back than the front, but what we are working on is an even coat all over. About 50% of my cavies have this type of coat. Swiss are unpredictable, you often cannot tell how a baby will turn out , so you need to run them on for quite some time. If you are taking up the breed make sure you have a lot of shed space! Some stay very short, (still a little longer than a Rex or teddy though) but these tend to have excellent even coated babies, so you have to have quite a mixed bag in the shed. You cannot ‘just have show cavies’. Sometimes Swiss are referred to as CH Teddies or Swiss Teddies, but they are all one in the same breed. I have taken to calling them just Swiss for a number of reasons. The main reason is that they are not, as I said above, Teddies. As far as the ‘CH’ goes, this is just an abbreviation to Switzerland. In the UK if we travel abroad we have a ‘GB’ sticker on the back of the car, in Switzerland they have ‘CH’, so ‘CH’ just means Swiss The Swiss, like any breed, have their ups and downs, their challenges and their triumphs but personally I don’t regret bringing them to England for one second, and I cant imagine my shed without these cheeky ‘fluffballs’
The Swiss ~ An Update The Swiss, previously known as the CH Teddy (gosh that sounds like a pop star) has certainly taken off in the UK. It seems there was a ‘niche’ just waiting to be filled by our fluffy friends. To my knowledge at least 3 other people have imported Swiss from various countries around Europe and more are in the planning stages. The Swiss have been out and about at shows and the good examples are generally well received by many, I have had so many requests for Swiss I literally cannot keep up. So the Swiss are here, they are hear in quite large number, and I would think, they are here to stay, so what next. Well next is obviously a Guide Standard but I do feel that is someway off as yet, the wheels of the cavy fancy move slowly and I have no objection to that, act in haste, repent at leisure as they say. In the meantime ‘next’ is to improve the stock we have and try and iron out faults , the same as any other breed then !. So what faults do the Swiss have ? Well this depends on how you look at the Swiss, they have as yet no Guide Standard, so what do we breed towards. What I am using is a ‘proposed standard’ which is in use all over Europe and from what I understand others are also using this as their breeding aims. Assuming we are working towards that proposed standard the main fault that the Swiss have is the longer hair on the rear. While this looks very cute it is a fault and the Swiss is aiming for a coat of +/- 6m (that’s 2 ½ “ in English) that is even all over. I have a lot of Swiss with this fault as do other breeders, all we can do is work away from it, we cannot ‘scrap‘ all stock with this fault as they are valuable breeders and we would be left with extremely few cavies to work with. Also unfortunately it is a fault that is difficult to track as it doesn’t develop until they are into their adult coat, by which time they have usually been bred from. I have managed to breed some nice even coated examples, the best of which won first, second &third Best New Variety out of 12 at Newark on the NCC and RVCC shows (yes that was me floating by on cloud nine) so given time, a lot of time, I am confident that this sometimes seemingly unattainable goal can be reached, and as a very wise fancier said to me recently ‘Standards need to provide a challenge and not be too easy, I do like a challenge. Other faults that we may struggle with are skirting and lack of depth across the shoulders, but these seem to show up much earlier in the cavies life and so can be more easily selectively bred out. There is also some debate as to the value of carriers in Swiss breeding, some have been told it is not the way to go, others aren’t sure, others are very pro carrier. All anyone can do is make up their own mind, I have bred some carriers and will keep you updated as to the results of further matings. The carriers are smooth haired (sometimes with a crest) but not normal short hairs, the hair has the length of a Swiss, but lies flat against the body, and it has a totally different feel to a normal shorthair. Then we have the crest. In the proposed standard used in Europe it states that ‘ a crest is a fault but not a DQ’. Often my babies are born with a ‘crest’ but I use the word loosely as by the age of 3 weeks it has vanished. So I tend to think of it as a ‘swirl’ rather like the aby often has . I do have one sow that has a crest that is a true crest, i.e. here to stay, personally I don’t like it, it seems to send the head hair off in all directions and ruins the neat round appearance of the cavy overall. I wouldn’t show her, but its down to personal choice at this stage. Finally we have satin, yes satin Swiss have appeared, much to my shock when they were born as I wasn’t even aware the parents carried satin. I did show one satin Swiss at Newark but this was an error in my judgement (put it down to a besotted piggy parent, I just wanted to show him to people), the Swiss needs to establish itself without throwing satin into the mix as well, and it does make the coat much finer which gives it a wispy appearance, satin, at present, really doesn’t seem to suit the Swiss coat, but again that’s just my opinion. So what is left, is there anything to show ? I have 28 Swiss currently and 4 of those I show, the rest are either babies, in breeding or have faults, although I am hoping some of those babies will make it to the show bench. I actually consider myself lucky with my ‘show’ ratio as I have 20 tortoishells and ZERO of those are show able in the purebreds, actually I have had around that number of Torts for 12 years and have had one ’reasonably nice’ one in all that time !, what I am saying is you need a lotta Swiss to be able to breed them, OR you need to be very strict about whom you keep and whom you pass on (but that’s not me lol) I can hardly believe it has almost been 2 years since the first Swiss landed on my doorstep. Since then my cavy fancying life has changed completely, they are addictive and they are hell bent on ‘shed domination’ they are placid and have incredible characters and I would never be without them. Until the next update……..
The Swiss (CH Teddy) My love affair with the Swiss , or CH teddies as they are called in Europe, began more than 10 years ago . I fell in love at first site, little bundles off fluff, but back then quarantine restrictions prevented me importing them. 2004 however bought a relaxation in the quarantine rules making it possible to bring some in. I started making enquiries and in October 2004, and thanks to some very kind and helpful Danish fanciers my first Swiss arrived in England from Germany. Four bouncing, placid, fluffballs with springs on their feet. They were followed in April 2005 by another batch from Sweden, and so the start of my Swiss stud was formed. Interest has been immense, because love them or hate them, you cant ignore them. The Swiss stand out. There are now many breeders of the Swiss in the UK, some of which have also imported them from Europe, some that have UK bred stock. They are shown all over the UK and are getting recognised out and about rather than the initial ‘what on earth is that’ reaction The Swiss have coats of around 6cm in length , it is curly, firm and yet soft, but with a bounce to it, and its unique feature is that it stands straight up. This makes them a ball of fluff, no parting, just one big powder puff. They tend to be large cavies. They were discovered in Switzerland by John & Isobel Day who went on to move the breed forward and develop them into the cavy we know today. No one took one breed and mated it to another and thought ‘hey cool babies I will do that again’. The Swiss are true breeding. I will also point out here one misconception, they are NOT longhaired teddies. In fact they are not the teddy gene at all. To satisfy my own curiosity I mated a Swiss to a teddy and a swiss to a rex, just to see which gene they were……….the answer was neither!! All babies were smooth haired. They say there are actually 9 ‘rexoid’ genes, so I would have to guess the swiss is one of them, but they certainly are not Rex, or Teddy The Swiss can be shown in the ‘New Emerging Variety’ Class at most shows competing with Otters, Sables and other New Varieties that have yet to get a Guide standard . They are shown as a longhair is, on a board. Personally I use a comb to get the coat sitting right for judging. They don’t need wrapping, but they do need regular brushing to prevent mats and to keep the skin healthy. If you are showing them you should, as per the RVCC, provide the secretary in advance with some information on your aims for the breed, otherwise how does the judge know what to judge ?? Of course as with any other breed there are problems, what breed doesn’t have problems, especially coated breeds ! Swiss have a tendency to grow longer at the back than the front, but what I are working on is an even coat all over, and I do have about 50% of my cavies of this type. Other faults that we may struggle with are skirting and lack of depth across the shoulders, but these seem to show up much earlier in the cavies life and so can be more easily selectively bred out. Then we have the crest. In the proposed standard used in Europe it states that ‘ a crest is a fault but not a DQ’. Often my babies are born with a ‘crest’ but I use the word loosely as by the age of 3 weeks it has vanished. So I tend to think of it as a ‘swirl’ rather like the aby often has . I do have one sow that has a crest that is a true crest, i.e. here to stay, personally I don’t like it, it seems to send the head hair off in all directions and ruins the neat round appearance of the cavy overall. I wouldn’t show her, but its down to personal choice at this stage. Finally we have satin, yes satin Swiss have appeared, much to my shock when they were born as I wasn’t even aware the parents carried satin. I did show one satin Swiss at Newark but this was an error in my judgement , I feel that the Swiss needs to establish itself without throwing satin into the mix as well, and it does make the coat much finer which gives it a wispy appearance, satin, at present, really doesn’t seem to suit the Swiss coat, but again that’s just my opinion. Swiss are unpredictable when it comes to what the babies turn out like so you need to run them on for quite some time, or you may end up keeping the wrong ones. Equally some stay very short, but these tend to have excellent even coated babies, so you have to have quite a mixed bag in the shed. We also have to make sure we don’t inbreed, Swiss as a whole and healthy and very big cavies, it would be a shame to lose that health just for the sake of a short cut to a better coat The best option for breeding is of course Swiss x Swiss. There is also some debate as to the value of carriers in Swiss breeding, some have been told it is not the way to go, others aren’t sure, others are very pro carrier. All anyone can do is make up their own mind. The carriers are smooth haired (sometimes with a crest) but not normal short hairs, the hair has the length of a Swiss, but lies flat against the body, and it has a totally different feel to a normal shorthair. One question I am frequently asked is ‘why change the name’ what is wrong with CH teddy. We nothing is wrong as such, its just we need for the sake of showing them and standards etc to drop the teddy part of the name. Why , well in part it is because of the above, they are not teddies. Also the teddy is still a fairly new breed in the UK, and the last thing that either Swiss breeders or Teddy breeder’s want is for breeders that know no differently to start mating them together. There is no point and it is ‘mixing genes’ and detrimental to both breeds. Therefore it has been proposed that we drop the ‘teddy’ part of the name in the UK. As far as the ‘CH’ goes, this is just an abbreviation to Switzerland. In the UK if we travel abroad we have a ‘GB’ sticker on the back of the car, in Switzerland they have ‘CH’, so ‘CH’ just means Swiss
The Swiss ~ An Update ~ The Cavy with the ever changing coat I suddenly realised its been quite a while since I scrawled some words down about my favourite breed and I thought I should rectify that. I should stress this ‘scrawl ’ is only my opinions, I don’t, and would never presume to, speak for all Swiss breeders in the UK, of which there are now many. The swiss has really ‘taken off’ I doubt there are many fanciers in the UK that haven’t seen one of our fluffy friends, in fact they are now becoming more common place than some older breeders, such as the Tortoishell or Roan. I am still asked many questions about the Swiss, so I here are some of MY answers. My Swiss was gorgeous as a baby but now it looks awful, short on shoulders and long at the back, why ? This is one of the most baffling and frustrating things about Swiss and for the first 2 years of my breeding them drove me nuts. Now though I have learnt that patience is a virtue. Swiss are funny pigs and change their coats almost constantly. They can be lovely under 5’s, all that you would want from a Swiss, even coat, plush and yet firm, and then they hit 5 months and its like a magic wand has been waved over your pig and the coat has been sucked in from the shoulders and shot out from the rear ! They look awful, I tend to call this the ‘fluffy bum’ stage. I have to admit when my cavies went like this I tended to ‘get rid’ but being the soft touch that I am I kept a few that I was attached to, and now I am glad I did. Why ? Because 18 months later that magic wand has been at work again and ‘kabam’ all the coat is back in the right places and looks gorgeous. Why does this happen ? Who knows, but I have had it happen to at least half a dozen sows now. Fortunately it fits in very well with breeding plans, show as U5’s, breed with them, then show as adults….perfect. I am not saying this happens in ALL cases, but patience certainly is a virtue. Of course this isn’t without precedent in other breeds who also go thru coat changes, although perhaps not as dramatically. What should the coat feel like ? Again this is my opinion. The coat should be soft and plush but firm so that if you were to pat it with the flat of your hand it should have a ‘bounce’ to it. The word ‘bounce’ was used by Caroline Smith when judging a Swiss and I thought it was so perfect, thanks Caroline. It should be even. In the standard from overseas it calls for a curly belly, which I have yet to see on an adult Swiss, but that is something we can work on Why are Swiss no longer shown on boards ? Ooops that was my mistake, they should never have been in the first place. I didn’t realise that we were in fact breaking NCC rule 15 in that only longhaired breeds can be shown on boards, and the Swiss although fluffy, are not longhaired. Thank you to Gerry Harvey for correcting that mistake Can I trim my Swiss if its too long at the back and then show it in purebreeds ? Simple answer, in my opinion, no, its cheating and breaks NCC rule 18 regarding improper preparation, and you could, and should , be disqualified. You cant trim a Rex, you cant trim a teddy, you cant trim a longhair, so you cant trim a Swiss. Why didn’t the Swiss go Guide Standard ? And what can I do to get the GS ? Because the RVCC Standards committee feels they are not ready yet, there are too many poor examples being shown.. To get to a stage where the breed can be considered to go for a GS we need to breed and show good examples consistently. Having said that being taken under the RVCC wing was a big achievement for the Swiss, they now have their own classes within the NEB section at RVCC shows and can have these classes at local shows should the secretary be willing. We should in my opinion be proud how far the breed has come in such a short time, and not be in too much of a hurry. What about Satin Swiss ? The satin Swiss issue is one that is debated widely and everyone has their own opinions, mainly it seems that people say the Swiss should not try and run before it can walk. I should point out that no one in the UK has deliberately bred to ’make’ satin Swiss, but they have popped out anyway, meaning we have been sold satin carriers. They are certainly very pretty pigs and can have lovely coats and in my opinion if they are entered in shows should be judged fairly, but judged for what they are, a separate breed, they are not Swiss, they are SATIN Swiss, just as an English self is not a solid satin, or a Satin Coronet is not a normal Coronet. I am really proud of my Swiss, they certainly are very striking and as a breed and laid back, large pigs, very healthy and good breeders. Going thru Cavies you find few negative remarks (you cant please everyone) and considering they only arrive in the UK in late 2004 have come a long way, I am really glad I brought them in.
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