Colours and Markings

This topic is about the markings and patterns of a Guinea Pig’s coat (fur). I’ve found this quite interesting as there are a lot of different types, etc.

Marked patterns

This basically means that there are more than one colour included with the pattern on their coat.

Agouti

Like wild Guinea Pigs, the coat has more than one colour on each strand of hair, thus creating a sort-of rainbow that ends up being a brown-ish, grey or even a sliver colour. There are far more variations to talk about!

Roan

This coat pattern scheme is quite similar to Agouti, however the head and feet have a solid black colour, with white hairs spread around elsewhere.

Brindle

An even-spread mixture of black, white and brown hairs on a Guinea Pig’s coat.

Silver

Simply, put a dark-coloured coat spread with silver hairs.

Bicolour

A Guinea Pig’s coat is called a Bicolour coat when it is made up of two different solid colours, thus a Tricolour coat whenever there’s three.

Another type of bicolour is the dutch coat, where most of the Guinea Pig’s coat is mostly one colour, or is agouti, with a white saddle (patch) of hair on its back, and a white blaze on the front of their head (nose upwards to their ears).

Yet another type of a Bicolour coat, is called “Dalmatian”, as their coat is white with black spots. This is much like the Dalmatian doggo.

Tricolour

And here we are, finally at the Tricolour coats! Well, this is obviously going to have three colours in a coat of this type.

Tortoiseshell

Very similar to tortoiseshell cats (meow), Guinea Pigs with this coat have read and black blocks of coloured hairs, and can also be Tricoloured when White is in the mix, and can therefore (ironically) be called “Tortoiseshell and white”.

Self-pattern

This basically means, the guinea pig only has one colour for it’s entire coat. Some colours (the most common of which) are as follows: White, buff (a dark-cream colour), cream, gold, lilac (a light shade of grey), slate, chocolate, red-beige (a mahogany brownish-red)