What counts as short/medium/long hair?

[RoyalDuke]

Sorry for being weird again! I'm wondering what "officialy" makes a piggy a short haired / long haired piggy. Does the hair have to reach a certain cm to be classed as having long hair?

(This will help greatly on my dissertation! Which I hope to be able to share with you in the summer as its the first novel study of its kind of guineas!)

 

[Sweet Potato]

As far as I'm aware shorthaired piggies like Americans or abyssinians hair stays at the same length without being trimmed but long haired piggies hair keeps growing until it's cut but I'm not sure if it does stop growing eventually hopefully someone else will be along soon with more information. I've only ever had short haired piggies.

 

[flowerfairy]

well one of mine is short haired but her sister is longish and the other two (unrelated) are long haired.

 

[flowerfairy]

So my short haired guineapig, Rosie has hair that stays the same length. Pic 1.

Her sister, Cherry Blossom has slightly longer hair that needs very occasional trimming. Pic 2

Mistletoe, pic 3 has long hair that needs cutting every few weeks as does Cufflinks, pic 4.

Just noticed Mistletoes sister, Jingle (long haired orange piggy) is in pic 3, rip my lovely x

 

[Betsy]

I wrote this guide which you may find helpful.

An Illustrated Guide to Hair Cutting

 

[RoyalDuke]

Thank you. Based on what you've said I think I will class them like this;
Short-haired - hair does not touch the floor when standing, Medium haired - Hair is long but does not touch the floor when standing, Long-haired- Hair clearly touches the floor when standing and may trail behind.

 

[Freela]

Thank you. Based on what you've said I think I will class them like this;
Short-haired - hair does not touch the floor when standing, Medium haired - Hair is long but does not touch the floor when standing, Long-haired- Hair clearly touches the floor when standing and may trail behind.

Also bear in mind that some pigs are long-haired but not all over if they are mixed breed. The pig in my avatar is a sheltie cross- she doesn't look long-haired from the pic, but she does grow a long skirt in back that I have to cut. Otherwise she just feels like a softer version of a short-haired pig. I think the clearest division between my short-haired and long-haired pigs is that a long-haired pig's hair just keeps on growing and you have to trim it and a short-haired pig's hair never has to be cut because it simply doesn't grow.

Just to add, I'm not sure if the long-haired pigs would eventually reach maximum length... I find the long skirt too hard to maintain so one it starts to tangle I just cut it back and it regrows within a couple months. I did try to keep Hadley's 'skirt' intact for awhile, but it was just too much trouble and she really did not enjoy me having to brush it!