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We began breeding Himalayan Peruvians December 1999, we
will outline below our findings and breedings that resulted in what we
have begun to achieve spring 2001, we are still working on this striking
variety so more will be added to this article as we continue with our
breedings.
Himalayan Peruvians, the beginning of a new venture !!
when we embarked on this new variety within our caviary we never dreamed
how much we would come to enjoy working with them, and than never realized
how difficult it would be to get started with producing them. Himalayan
longhairs are or at the time were difficult to find, we were very lucky to
of landed on a wonderful Black Peruvian boar that had Himi in his
background but had no himalayan or Himalayan carrier sows so the search
began, with my friend Heather's expertise in the Genetics field I fell
upon two REW Peruvian sows I had, since REW's genetically can be
"ca" HImalayan's are also "ca" so there was a good
possiblity of pulling out Himi's in the first generation, which I
achieved, I recieved from this first pairing a REW boar and two Himi
Peruvian sows, there points were a bit light but they were a start.
Eventually from lots of searching and a lot of
good luck we were able to pick up a pair of Himalayan Peruvians, this pair
along with what I already had to begin with became the foundation of our
Himalayan's and Black's that we have today, they still have a long way to
go but we have achieved more than we had expected in such a short time.
Preferred Breedings !!!
Breeding strictly Himalayan to Himalayan is preferred,
if you already have the dark points and the nice density and texture you
want, in our case we are achieving really good dark points, and feel
strongly that using nice deep blacks with our Himi's helps to keep the
points jet black , we try to avoid using any faded blacks, broken coloured
cavies or any Himi's with missing points, we do use Himi's with light
points as long as they have all their points, this is one thing I must
stress eventhou the animal has good points and good density if you keep
one back that is missing its points this could and will constantly show up
in the breeding program and is nonshowable so I do not use even in my
breeding program they are usually sold as pets.
Himalayan Babies !!
Day 1 the baby himi resembles a white peruvian, a baby
that exhibits darkening of the feet and ear rims by 2-3 days is very
promising and from my working with them turn out to have nice dark points
as adults, but again each baby is different.
The majority of the Himi's I have born, you can determine their points to
all be present by weaning age, there will be a hint of a smutt happening,
feet and ears will begin to turn black these are the ones you should
consider holding back and watch how they mature, again any missing points
do not keep for your breeding program.
Temperature ?? Does it play a Role
Some breeders may disagree with this, this is just from
my experiences of working with the Himalayan peruvian, many people believe
or feel that Himalayan's should be kept in cooler climates, more so than
other varieties to enhance the points on the HImi, as the points are known
as Temperature guages. This may in fact be true that the Himi is
Temperature sensitive but all my cavies are kept at a constant temperature
of 70 degrees and I have a few that have such black points that I feel
that genetics plays an important part as well.
Himi Growth Chart (Regarding points)
Constant temperature of 70 Degrees
Below are some photo's of our favorite and best
himi's residing here, Fort York Ellesmere and her son Fort York
Chestermere
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