The Swiss Teddy is a guinea pig breed that has a harsh coat. The breeding standard rules say the Swiss Teddies should have thick fur that sticks out and is slightly curled. The hair needs to have a length of about 6 cm all over the body. Swiss Teddies are not allowed to have any crowns. Crowns on the forehead are tolerated. When Swiss Teddies grow up the crown on the forehead will be hidden in the fur. Every color and color combination is allowed. The body has to be sinewy with broad shoulders. The head has to be short with big eyes. The ears should hang down and the ears’ shape should fit to the guinea pig’s body.
The gene for the Swiss Teddy fur is recessive and it has nothing to do with the genes for usual Teddies or Rex guinea pigs. Mating a Swiss Teddy with p. e. a Rex will result in a litter of straight hair guinea pigs. But the babies will all be carriers of the Swiss and the Rex structure at the same time. Because of the Swiss Teddy’s fur length it is possible that the straight hair babies’ fur will be a little longer than usual either. If you put one of those carriers together with another Swiss Teddy, there will be a chance of 50 % that there will be Swiss Teddy babies. But by putting in more and more short hair guinea pigs the fur of the following Swiss Teddies will become shorter over generations.
This means: If you are interested in breeding Swiss Teddies in a country that does not have them yet you need to import pure Swiss Teddies from other countries regularly. For creating your own steady gene pool I recommend to start with importing two or three good Swiss Teddies from a country that already has them. Best would be to have one sow and two boars for the beginning. They should all have another pedigree.
You can start to cross-breed them with straight hair guinea pigs. Female Swiss carriers can mate with the other full Swiss Teddy boar then. The male carriers with the pure Swiss Teddy sow etc. If the fur gets too short you can either import a few more Swiss Teddies from another country or you can start to cross-breed with silkie guinea pigs. But keep in mind that cross-breeding with silkies will lead to an extremely uneven fur that is completely unwanted on Swiss Teddies and not tolerated. To make the fur more even again you need to cross-breed with straight hair piggies that carry the Swiss gene again or with pure bred Swiss Teddies. Getting the uneven fur out of your guinea pigs will take some generations. A huge gene pool of Swiss Teddies is found in Europe in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. But not every breeder is okay with pet transports overseas. You also need to be prepared for high prices for the transport. So better do a little research before. Importing guinea pigs from p. e. Germany to the US does not require any special health check-ups. Nevertheless, if you find a breeder that agrees to importing them to the United States, better ask them to have a health certificate that is not older than 10 days when travelling.
The Swiss Teddy is still a very new breed. Although there already are some countries that have a lot of Swiss Teddy breeders, the outward appearance of Swiss Teddies still differs a lot. There are breeders that have extremely short haired Swiss Teddies and there are breeders that have Swiss Teddies with a too long fur. Some of them look like having a lion’s mane. Even when mating two Swiss Teddies with a perfect fur the litter can have a fur that does not fit in the actual breeding standard. This is the reason why breeding Swiss Teddies is something very special to me – the breeding standard is not that strict yet, You still have a lot of surprises in your litters and the breeders themselves are more calm and tolerant when it comes to discussions about cross-breeding for better results etc.
Molting The Swiss Teddy is almost the only breed that has a molting (during puberty, after pregnancy etc. … it is not a seasonal molting!). Usually they lose their fur right behind the head over half of their body. Some lose the fur completely or it just breaks off. You should always keep an eye on their fur when you intend to show them on an exhibition etc. During moltings the fur of the Swiss Teddies is so unevenly that they will not get a good rating. It is safer to show guinea pigs that are aged about 4 months. Usually their first molting starts when they are between 4 and 6 months old. The next safe time for showing would be after their first molting. The fur will be grown back when they are between 9 and 14 months old. The durance of the molting depends on the final fur’s length. Some Swiss Teddies with longer fur will not get their final length back before the next molting starts. So better keep the fur’s length short by a good selection, but long enough for the breeding standard. ;)
Swiss Teddy Project
I've been interested in breeding guinea pigs since I was a child. But when I grew older I saw that there are so many guinea pigs that need help and I decided to run a guinea pig rescue instead. But the interest in breeding and genetics has always remained. When my account on instagram grew bigger I got a lot of messages from p. e. people living in the US that told me they are so sad that they don't have the Swiss Teddy breed there yet. Well, I still don't want to produce more guinea pigs just for pet-lovers, there are so many piggies over here that need help, but I want to breed Swiss Teddies for other breeders. Swiss Teddies are still so rare and there are only a very few breeders yet. And a breeder cannot breed without guinea pigs from another breeder. And I would also love to help my friends out that live in other countries. So I've made this to my special breeding project - breeding Swiss Teddies for my (breeding) friends from all over the world, so that they can finally get their favorite breed. And I want to show backyard breeders what a good breeding looks like. I want to change their minds.
I'm still planning everything and looking for the right piggies. But if you're interested in this project and would like to have some Swiss Teddies, please tell me about it. :) I'm going to breed Swiss Teddies in cream-white, lemonagouti-cream-white, greyagouti-buff-white, black-cream-white and black-buff-white mainly. Breeders and also all other piggy lovers are warmly welcome. :)
This is where you can find all the piggies that are for sale and are in a good condition for travelling longer distances: For Sale.
If you are interested in the main reasons for why I stopped the guinea pig rescue you can read about it here: Why breeding?.