Guidance Notes for New and Emerging Varieties
The RVCC and the BCC have produced Guidance Notes for Breeders, Exhibitors and Judges for the most popular New and Emerging Varieties. The agreement of such Guidance Notes by the BCC is the first step towards possible Guide Standard status, once it has been established that sufficient numbers meeting the Guidance Notes are being exhibited.
Other varieties may still be shown in New and Emerging Variety classes, but in these cases the exhibitor will have to provide similar notes to help the judge assess the relevant breed.
The following Guidance Notes were agreed at the BCC meetings of 17.10.09 and 23.10.10. You can download a printable version of the Guidance Notes here.
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White/Grey Chinchilla
Chinchilla
A cavy with a long ticked agouti-pattern all over the body except for white or cream areas that must be clearly defined and distinct. These are restricted to eye circles, nostrils, jowls, chest and belly. The belly should be wide and just visible when the cavy is viewed from the side, but not a crisp line against the ticked side of the body. The Chinchilla has a paler base colour than the normal Agouti, to be as pale a shade as possible without losing the desired grey pigmentation on skin, ears and eye rims. Too dark a shade of body colour is a fault.
Allowable colours are:
- White/Grey Chinchilla - pale grey base with long white ticking, white markings
- White/Beige Chinchilla - beige/mink base with long white ticking, white markings
- Cream/Grey Chinchilla - pale grey base with long cream ticking, cream markings
- Cream/Beige Chinchilla - beige/mink base with long cream ticking, cream markings
Lunkarya
Lunkarya
A longhaired cavy in the Peruvian model (having a frontal, chops and two hip rosettes), but differing in coat texture, which should be as harsh as possible. The coat is curly in a ringletted fashion, giving a corkscrew effect that needs to be present from the base of the coat to the ends. The hair on the frontal, chop furnishings and belly is rexoid but not ringletted. A young Lunkarya may have a softer coat than an adult and this should be taken into account.
Due to the random corkscrew effect of the coat the Lunkarya cannot be presented with a parting. To maintain a clean coat free of knots and matting the Lunkarya should be regularly brushed, combed or groomed by hand. For presentation at the judging table the Lunkarya must be shown with a coat that appears naturally untidy so as to display the random ringlets. Although this can be assisted by brushing the coat out and then ‘misting’ it with water, which enhances the curls, the cavy must not be damp when presented to the judge.
It is essential that judges should be able to run their fingers through the coat to check for coat quality and presentation; but although the Lunkarya must be shown free of knots and tangles on a board, brushes and combs must not be taken to the judging table. A Lunkarya may be shown in any colour or combination of colours.
Dark Sable
Dark Sable
The Dark Sable is a dark sepia coloured ‘shaded cavy’. The masking top colour, a very dark sepia (nearly black), starts from the nose encompassing the head, the front feet and extending right down the back of the cavy. This masking top colour extends down the sides of the cavy shading to a dark sepia colour to a lighter shade of sepia on the belly. Eye colour to be dark ruby.
It is important that the shading and mask are clearly visible for this breed to be assessed by the judge. In the young cavy the body colour is a single shade of dark sepia, as the shading has not yet developed, these are not suitable for showing.
The Sable can be assessed by placing the very dark sepia feet against the belly, this will identify the distinctly lighter shade of the belly. The dark ruby eyes of the Sable are different to the required black-eye colour for the Self Black.
The Chocolate Sable is a colour variant of the Dark Sable. This shows the same development of markings, with colour starting from a from a deep chocolate colour (mask) shading to a milk chocolate belly colour.
