What breed? Calling All Teddy/Rex Lovers! Info?

[MissSofi]

Hi
I have come a cross pictures of teddy bear piggies and rexes and have fallen inlove with their look (I'm also pretty sure Moo gave birth to a teddy or rex x) I've also read that teddys are supposed to have softer coats and really nice temperaments. But besides this, I really havent been able to find much information about the two breeds, specificly what the differences are between the two.

I am looking to adopt either at teddy or a rex, but would like to know as much about them as possible, besides that they are hard to find!

If anyone could help me out when it comes to breed identification (particularly in pups) and anything eles that sets then apart, (I here they can be easy to confuse with texels as pups) that would be great.

 

[ILovesMePiggies]

Here's a snippet of info on the two breeds that I found on a website.

"The Rex is one of the largest breeds of guinea pig and is noted for its cuddly and affable nature. The fur is coarse and wire-like and the whiskers are crinkly. The Rex breed is often confused with the Teddy breed as they look very similar with their plush fur type. There are methods of telling them apart however; the Rex will have crinkly whiskers while the Teddy has whiskers that are longer and straighter, and the fur on a Rex is far more coarse to the touch than that of the Teddy."

So for telling apart pups my guess would be look at the whiskers to see if they're long and straight (Teddy) or crinkly and short (Rex).

 

[MissSofi]

Thak you! I swear i have been doing research for weeks and haven't found anything as helpful.

 

[ILovesMePiggies]

Had to look it up myself because when I first got one of my boys I didn't know why some of his whiskers were crinkled lol. I've since come to the conclusion that he's a Rex cross/poor Rex (a poor Rex is were they show some of the breed characteristics but not all/ have a sparse coat).

 

[Jojojo]

I have a rex and I love him, he has scrubbly fur and bent, scraggly whiskers. He is affectionately referred to as "the toilet brush" by our household, because that's what he's like to stroke.

 

[MissSofi]

Ahh yes, Elliot? The one with the cute fuzzy bum, I remember his pictures.

 

[Jojojo]

Ahh yes, Elliot? The one with the cute fuzzy bum, I remember his pictures.

Yeah, that's the one.

 

[MissSofi]

Oh I have never been so inlove with a bum! lol

 

[Fudgenrolo]

My boys are Rex. I had planned to have a pair of smooth coated tri-coloured sows but when I saw the pics of the boys and read the descriptions of their cheeky characters I just fell in love. Now they are mine I love them to pieces. They are very cute, and very cheeky!

I find that they need to be given a good brush regularly and I think their fur seems to 'stick' to things more than with a smooth coated piggy but I haven't had pigs in a very long time so it may just be my perception of things!

I find it strange to match characters to breeds though as I think all piggies are individuals so I find it hard to believe that Rex's will be friendlier.... my boys are your typical piggies in that regard.... scream like they're being murdered when you pick them and then mutter at you whilst you hold them but they're pretty good at lap time. My two are also *extremely* nosey.

Tommy....

Ronnie....

 

[guineapigmomy]

I love my Moo Moo. She is a teddy/texel mix. Her hair is course and wavey and she has cute little bent wiskers. She is hard to catch but when I get her she loves to be held and brushed.

 

[Tessa Bea]

My Tahiri is a Rex, she has somewhat wiry bent looking whiskers and a fluffy orange coat. It doesn't feel like a toilet brush as some one else said about theirs (ha!), not to me, anyway. Her fur is a little more course, but very fluffy and dense. I find that her fur feels softer when I give her a good brushing.

Until I read this thread, I thought she was a "teddy rex", that they were the same breed. Now I know that they are not. Perhaps, since her coat is softer than the average rex, she is a mix of the two? I have never had a pure teddy or a rex to compare her to. I believe, however, that "teddy/rex" is what the rescue meant when I asked about her, not "teddy rex", which is how I heard it. Further backing up that perhaps she is a mix of the two.

My other girl, Kimi, is a teddy / satin mix. Her fur is soft, fluffy, and dense. However, it is also shiny. She has slightly curved whiskers

As far as temperment goes, I have found that both of these girls are easily ten times easier than my shorthair and longhair/abby boys to train to do tricks. Kimi loves to cuddle and is a big sweetheart, but Tahiri is rather jumpy. That may be because she has a cataract in her left eye, I doubt it is due to her breed.

Hope this helps a little!

 

[ILovesMePiggies]

Another bit of info just found via the web

"The Rex breed sometimes looks similar to the Teddy, but the two breeds are genetically distinct--breeding a Rex to a Teddy will not result in Rex or Teddies, but rather American cavies."

So a cross between a Rex and a Teddy results in a normal short coated guinea pig, who'd have guessed that lols

 

[Tessa Bea]

...a cross between a Rex and a Teddy results in a normal short coated guinea pig, who'd have guessed that

Huh, well then maybe the rescue just meant Tahiri was a teddy or a rex? I really don't know now.

 

[MissSofi]

Well Maybe what they mean to say was that mixing doesn't guarantee a rex or teddy, because Moo was definitely not a neither pure-bred, she has a very soft and fluffy but flat coat, and she definitely produced a fully wiry coated curly whiskered pup... who would have guessed.

 

[ILovesMePiggies]

Further googling for genetics came up with the genetics of smooth coats and both types of rex mutation (rex and teddy coats).

Smooth hair (rr).
The rex mutations are rx (rex coat) and wv (genetically called the wavy coat, but to you and me it's a teddy coat), both of which are recessive.

The rx and wv genes are modifiers, meaning they modified/change the phenotype. As both are recessive two copies of the gene are required to give the full genotype, thus resulting in the phenotype being shown. Therefore the cross of a teddy to a rex would result in offspring showing the smooth haired coat phenotype that would be genetically rrrxwv, with neither modifier showing it's self in the phenotype.

So the coat genetics of a full rex would be rxrx. This animals phenotype would be for a full rex coat. An animal with the genotype rrrx, would have a phenotype which was a semi-mixture of both due to the incomplete dominance of the smooth coat gene (both coat types being present and shown in a kind of mixture, the resulting coat is not as rough as the rex coat but not quite as soft as the smooth coat though edging more towards the smooth coats in type because of it's slight dominance over the rex gene, leading to a smooth wavy coat).

Breeding a guinea pig with rxrx genetics to an rrrx would result in a 50% chance of full rex offspring and a 50% chance of mixed phenotype.
Breeding a guinea pig with rrrx genetics to another guinea pig with rrrx genetics would result in 25% smooth short coat, 50% mixed phenotype with incomplete dominance showing and 25% rex.

The last two paragraphs can be repeated again with the teddy genetics by simply substituting the wavy modifying gene, wv, into the places where the rx rex gene is.

From what you said about your Moo MissSofi, I would be inclined to guess that she is possibly genetically an rrrx guinea pig ie not carrying the full phenotype of either a rex or a standard smooth coat and as such could produce both smooth coat and rex offspring depending on the male she was breed to.

 

[MissSofi]

That sounds about right. =)

 

[akstrohm]

From what you said about your Moo MissSofi, I would be inclined to guess that she is possibly genetically an rrrx guinea pig ie not carrying the full phenotype of either a rex or a standard smooth coat and as such could produce both smooth coat and rex offspring depending on the male she was breed to.

No, an rxrx pig is a rex.

So if Moo was a shorthair but produced a rex baby, she has to be heterozygous at the rex locus. If bred to a short hair, the baby would be short hair (either homozygous or heterozygous at the rex locus). If bred to a rex, the baby could be either a short hair (if heterozygous) or a rex (if homozygous for the recessive allele).

 

[MissSofi]

I was originally told that Moo was an abyssinian teddybear x and that she was probably impregnated by a rex x. However the person I adopted Moo from was only going by what she had been told as well, so really. as a fact, all I know what I could see: That Moo was a smoothly coated piggy (though her fur was a little longer and unusually soft. and that her baby girl had the same coat type, But her baby boy had a dense curly coat and curly whiskers.

 

[MissFormosa]

I have two Teddies, Errol and Fitzroy. Their hair, even their whiskers, are very dense and kinky. When you push on their hair or pet them, the hair pops right back into place. They seemed to have soft fur when they were still babies, but now that they are getting older, their hair seems to be slightly bristly. It feels like a soft bristled brush. Their hair gives them a rounded puffy appearance.

Here are some pics.

This is Errol. You see that hair on his cheek? It fell off his body. That is what Teddy's hair looks like.

Here is Fitzroy. You can see his kinky whiskers in this pic, especially his eye whisker.

 

[distancel]

They are so cute! Are texel's whiskers crinkly as well? I was just wondering. Buffy has very crinkly whiskers but her hair is mostly wavy and small ringlets so she's a texel I guess? Hehe breeds are confusing. Speaking of Buffy she is due for a hair cut it's getting hot again. I hate cutting off her curls though! I think she appreciates it though.