Yhurkatha Caviary

31/05/2026

2.5 weeks Tortie sow.

13/05/2026

Came home from work and saw babies moving abouts! Torties born today :)

I'm nervous with this pregnancy as mum is so huge! ..and I actually lost 1 sow with huge pregnancy. Look at these babies sizes! So huge you can probably tell by comparing it with my hand.

21/04/2026

21/04/2026

Don't Go Anywhere Near It! 😅

21/04/2026

Everyday I feed them fresh grass but come on piggies you barely made a dent to the grass area. Less than 2m² not even been used and I still have 248m² spare of growing tall grass. Now it might be time to mow them again as my pigs can't keep up.

Photo of the left over grass taken this morning :( I'm sure they'll come back to it later but I need them to finish it off quick!

17/04/2026

Since 1979! That's 47 years of Ridgeback history in Australia 😊

One of the first copy that Toni (UK) given to me of "About Ridgeback" and the "genetic punnett square" explanation examples (in the following pages) on how to breed them really help me out. But honestly if you got 1 good Ridgeback I think you'll set to get good baby Ridgebacks too.

I find it that lower Ridge produce lower ridge babies too.

Here's how I started with the breed:

I started with a pure breed Abyssinian cross with a pure breed self and got 1 baby out of it and luckily it's a sow and a Ridgeback! (We will call her R1 for this explanation) The problem is it doesn't have that "high set" Ridge even when grown.

I then used another pure bred boar Ridgeback from a well known Aby breeder in Victoria. As usual I put him to a purebred self and gave me some "funky" looking babies meaning there's some rosettes and incomplete rosettes placed randomly. I then kept one of the boar babies until grown (We will call him R2 for this example)

Since R2 still have some sort of rosettes I put him to a purebred self and they produced me some funky coat babies, 1 smooth coat and 1 Ridgeback!!! This Ridgeback has a good high set of ridge (and makes me think the Victorian Abyssinian boar is really of good quality). We will call this ridgeback R3.

R1 and R3 produced me some funky coated babies, a self black and 1 Ridgeback.
I just continue breeding with a funky coat or with a Ridgeback. I just make sure I use selfs to mate with a ridgeback/funky coat. Lucky that Ridgebacks produce selfs too (with no tuff feet) so I had no issue breeding them unless I want to introduce a new colour then I get a purebred self with the colour I want and use/introduce it in my Ridgeback breeding program.

That's what I've been doing when breeding my Ridgebacks :)
They're the same with the other established breeds of cavy like the roans/dals, american crested etc... that produce either a showable or not showable pups in a litter. Ridgeback comes in selfs or any colour combination and that's another thing that excites me when I breed this beautiful breed of cavy.

Hope this information helps. :)

Edited: Document below "About Ridgeback" bibliography by:

Nick Warren
Simon Neesam
Brian Mayoh
With Barbara Grieve (WA)mentioned in the document.

17/04/2026

Very excited... in two weeks or so I will get my 4th generations of Ridgebacks!

I'm really enjoying breeding them. I follow the Rare Varieties Cavy Club with Toni Erica Angel initial guidance. She's very helpful.

Breeding Ridgeback reminds me of breeding my munchkin cat which is a co-dominant gene and in a litter will give me a normal leg kittens and shorties. It's a 50/50 chance and in some litter you won't even get some shorties.

You gotta understand genetics to be interested in breeding the Ridgeback cavy. I will also compare the Ridgeback breeding with the Roan or the Dalmatian breed of cavy where in a litter you'll get a 50/50 chance roans and sometimes you'll just get selfs roan bred or Dal bred.

Sad that it started to develope here in Australia and now it's gone but thriving in UK and other parts of Europe.

22/03/2026

No takers and I feel so guilty but sadly I have to mow them tomorrow.

I envisioned that my guinea pigs will decimate the grass so I used my Horticulture qualification to grow the grass organically within 17 days but my pigs can't keep up with the supply and my backyard is looking like wilderness! Lol! 😅

But at least now I know how the wind circles around my backyard 😆😆😆

16/03/2026

My lawn is literally bowing down due to height and I still feel bad mowing the lawn but my guinea pigs can't keep up with the supply.

Does anyone in SACC group need some fresh grass for their pigs before I mow them?

11/03/2026

250sqm of fresh grass! Lucky cavies!