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This is about me and my pigs
My name is Susan J. Wise, I live in Darlington which is in the north east of England I kept "guinea pigs" many years ago as a young girl, these were only the pet or "heinz 57" of the pig world and loved every minute of what I thought was a lot of guinea pigs to look after - ten. Many years later with a family of my own, my second daughter Victoria wanted a guinea pig and this rekindled the feeling I had for these little animals and finally when the children left home I bought myself a couple from the local pet shop and these two boars were the start of the Rexcetra Stud. I then went looking for a periodical that I could read to keep up with the cavy scene of the day, 'Cavies' was the obvious choice and this led me to join the National Cavy Club and my nearest local club - Durham and Northumberland Cavy Club. One day in March 2002 I went along to a show to see what happened at such meetings, people there were very friendly I was absolutely amazed at all the varieties of cavies, they were only a few breeds in the 1960's, and this is where I saw my first Rex Cavy and fell in love immediately. Duncan McRobbie the secretary was very kind and managed to obtain my first Rex a lemon agouti bi sow. Since then I have been very lucky and obtained some good breeding stock off various well known studs that breed Rex, and I would like to thank at this point Linda Monk, Melanie Bell and Mary Jaffa, for starting me off with some good pigs that have become the basis of the Rex in the shed today. The colours in rex which I prefer to breed are silver agouti, silver/white, some tri coloured and most of all my favourite, various colours of roaning.
In the early months of 2003 I saw my first Teddy cavy, very much like the rex with hair that stands erect, but the hair on the teddy is straight and thick, where as on the rex it is a 'kinky' course hair. At the Doncaster show in 2003 The Rare Varieties Cavy Club had a stall with a Teddy on display, after talking to Caroline Smith who was in charge of the desk, I agreed with her that I would purchase a Boar and Sow as soon as a pair became available. A few months later I had my first Teddies in the shed a Teddy boar and Teddy carrier sow. and later on in May I purchased another pair of full teddies from Gerry Harvey, Gerry was the first person to import Teddies from Scandinavia. I have to thank Caroline and Gerry for the excellent pigs that I obtain from them, they have produced some really lovely animals for me My way forward now with the Teddies is to specialise in the Chocolate tri colour and black tri coloured. In 2006 I saw my first Swiss cavy at Keighley show, Heather Henshaw, let me hold and have a close look at her cavies that she had entered in the show, I was amazed by their lovely soft long coats. Early in 2008 I had decided that I would like to breed some swiss cavies, as we were going to Devon for a holiday I decided to contact Gina Skinner of Pedrina Cavies in Barnstaple, I managed to bring home some beautiful stock from her stud, some she had bred herself others from Callias Cavies and some foreign stock. I have become quite smitten with these very gently, big framed cavies and the colours are fabulous, the colours in particular that I like are the slate and lilac combinations, which I hope to concentrate on, I hope to have some in the shed for many years to come. *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
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Send mail to
susan@rexcetra.co.uk with
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