Someone familiar with guinea pigs could in fact surprised to know that there are actually 13 different races that exist in the world today. In addition, in each particular breed, different colors available, so this is creating quite a variety of looks for these cuddly critters.
Although many different breeds there are only a few of these actually made at home by people as pets. Those that pet owners are most familiar, the Sheltie, Peruvian and Abyssinian Short haired breeds. With the exception of the Sheltie, all these guinea pig breeds are widely recorded in various competitions.
When you consider a guinea pig, its usually the Abyssinian breed that comes to mind is that these are the best known of the breeds. Their coats are that many known cowlicks, and the fur is quite rough and coarse.
Peruvians are one of the breeds long hair, with fur grows up to 20 inches. The long hair falls over their faces, giving them a "shaggy" look
Shelties are also a long hair breed, but her hair fall forward, of course it flows backwards, so that they look a little leaner and cleaner cut than their shaggy Peruvian colleagues.
In contrast to the long hair breeds have the "Rex" breed short hair that sticks to all parts of her body straight up. This variety is known as "Rex" because they exhibit the Rex gene, which was in fact responsible for the production of other races including the Albaca, Texel and Merino guinea pigs.
A few other short-haired breeds are the American and English guinea pigs. Besides being short, the hair on these animals also smooth and straight, with broad noses. These two are considered by many as the most popular breeds.
