Texels

The Texel is one of the most exciting new breeds to appear in the fancy for some time. It combines the beauty and dedication to care of the Silkie and Peruvian with the type and "cuddle factor" of the Teddy and Rex. There are a few things about the origins and breeding of the Texel coat prospective breeders should know.

The Texel is, by definition, a curly-coated cavy with hair as long as a show quality Silkie or Peruvian, and a short-hair's cobby type. This difficult combination of factors was achieved by Clare and Geoff White in England over an eight-year period, beginning in 1980 when a set of Rex boars were bred to Sheltie(Silkie) sows (White, 1988). Over the next eight years, the offspring of these animals were bred for the Texel type until the full length seen in British Texels was developed (White, 1988).

When Mary Haslam, Mary Guthrie and others began to import the Texel to the U.S., they began the long process of developing an American strain to be standardized. Because of cost and importation problems, it made sense for them to have brought only a few animals back and to have out-crossed with a more commonly available, compatible breed, the Silkie--The British standard calls for no frontals, so Peruvians would not work. Out-crossing Texels to Silkies works in the same way as crossing Silkies to Satin Silkies. The first generation doesn't have a Texel coat, but carries the genes for it, just as half Satin does not show satin sheen.

Breeding the offspring of Texels and Silkies together or to another Texel will produce an average of 1/4 to 1/2 Texels. Out-crossing this way allows the total number number of Texels to be increased much faster than by simply crossing Texel to Texel, and also allows new colors to be developed. This precedure is called "bulking up" by animal breeders when working with new types.

Many people might ask why not just cross Texel and Teddy, or Teddy and Silkie to develop Texels? There are two reasons: the incompatibility of the Teddy and Texel genetic makeup and the time involved to develop the coat length.

The incompatibility of the Teddy and Texel genetic makeup would cause immediate failure with the Teddy/Texel breeding. Instead of Teddies carrying the long-haired gene, as would be expected, the results would be short-haired smooth-coated animal. The reason is that the Texel was developed from the British Rex, not the American Teddy (White, 1988). Teddies were not imported into Britain until three years after the development of the Texel was begun (Whiteway, 1989; White, 1990), and is still not common in the British fancy. Most people do not realize that there is a difference between the Teddy and Rex genes, but in 1988-89 crosses between the Teddy (called waved by geneticists) and Rex yeilded smooth-coated, short-haired animals (Whiteway, 1989).

The Teddy/Rex imcompatibility also causes problems for American breeders trying to develop their own Teddy/Texels. Bill Felicita had some Texel accidentals, that he called "Sizzles", appear in his long-haired cavies several years ago. If breeders were able to aquire this stock now, they would have an "American Texel". The problems with this new Texel is that the two types of animals--Teddy/Texel and Rex/Texel would look alike but not be cross-breedable. The resulting animals would have long straight hair. Therefore, if a breeder bought Texels from two different breeders, they would not know if they would have Texel offspring. To prevent conflict among breeders, only one gene, either the Rex or the Teddy should be basis of our Texel.

The second problem with the Teddy/Silkie crosses is the time involved to develop a full length coat. As stated earlier, the Texel took eight years of work to achieve a full length coat. The reason is that long hair is not controlled by only one gene (as the curly hair seems to be), but has modifying genes as well. These modifiers change the number of factors bred for from one in the case of Silkie/Texel to at least three in the case of Silkie/Teddy. This increase in desired genes reduces the chances to one in 64 or ever getting the desired result. As Peggy Fry found working with Satin Silkies, getting a full-length coat takes much time and patience. If breeders were going to try to breed Satin Silkies now, they would simply get one or two and breed to Silkies, rather than start with Satin Americans.

With these two problems, the Teddy/Tex genetics incompatibility and the time required to lengthen the coat, it is clear that the Texel/Silkie cross is the best way to further develop Texels in the U.S.

For further information or copies of sources for this article, contact me at: Wyann Eden/Eden's Garden Varieties 282 Lexington Hts., Athens, GA 30605

REFERENCES

White, C. (1990). Personal communication with author.

White, C & White, G. (1988). Masquerade Stud's history of a new breed--the texel. Reprinted in ACBA News, Nov., p. 32-35.

Whiteway, C> & Robinson, R. (1989). Two recessive rex coat mutants in the guinea pig. Journal of Heredity, v. 80, no 2, p. 163-165.

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