I had to open a new thread to ask Melissa--
did you ever own or see one of those long haired guinea pigs - The afghan of guinea pigs? I always wanted one as a child.
I was seriously into guinea pigs as a kid.

there are a few long haired breeds. I had a couple peruvians which are long haired with cowlicks that make the fur fall over their faces and make them look like a little dustmop.
http://www.acbaonline.com/breeds/images/bobperuvian_hastings01.jpg

The others are silkies - which are a plain long haired guinea pig. They look like a tear drop when they have really long coats. http://typesofguineapigs.com/images/guineasilkie.jpg

there are coronets which have a white crested similar cowlick on their head. http://uniquepetshop.com/coronet1.jpg

and there are texels which are curley coated long haired guinea pigs. http://www.coveryourhair.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/texel-guinea-pig.jpg

I did have a couple peruvians. They really weren't my thing. The coat is a nightmare to care for to get to show shape and needs to be wrapped, protected from chewing neighbors, etc.

What I was trying to raise was broken, cream, and red eyed orange white crested. White crested are exceptionally difficult to get proper markings on because the only white on the animal can be on the crest. Broken is the term for spotting so the other two colors cannot be white but genetically the animal must be tri color. At the time white crested really only came in two colors which were red and black and occasionally golden agouti. So I had to start with reds and cross them to Americans of the proper color and type for the direction I wanted to go with and play with genetics for several generations to get the type, color, markings and other details I wanted. It was FUN! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/2006_TN_State_Fair-_Guinea_Pig.jpg/180px-2006_TN_State_Fair-_Guinea_Pig.jpg

I love the internet. This is kind of what I was going for. These two are technically not broken white crested but are Tortoise shell (red and black) but they have a crest in the right spot and the right color!! http://images.canadianlisted.com/nlarge/breeding-pair-of-purebred-white-crested-cavies_4918064.jpg

I love the internet too!
I had an agouti boar (Beaver) and a cinnamon colored sow (Gertrude) who was huge. From these I bred a bunch of tri-colored ones, solids, variations on brown,red and white. I was just a little girl then, knew nothing. Ended up with about 30 of them in a chest of drawers in my bedroom. Had an ancient book of pictures of "hutches" I found at a pet store. Seemed to me the dresser=hutch.
Mother had a fit about the chest of drawers. My clothes were on the floor and the dresser was full of guinea pigs. She had no idea how many I had. When she figured it out, she made me give them all away, it was a huge bummer!
I may get some again someday. I thought they were really fun.

Elvis is very cool looking. I love that eye liner. Strangely I had a breed of rabbit that we bred just for that look.

http://www.viarural.com.ar/viarural.com.ar/ganaderia/asociaciones/exterior-conejos/dwarf-hotot-01.jpg

Ah yes, the Hotot, I always liked those. I like the white & black combination.

 Quote: Betty Landercasp

Mother had a fit about the chest of drawers. My clothes were on the floor and the dresser was full of guinea pigs. She had no idea how many I had. When she figured it out, she made me give them all away, it was a huge bummer!
I may get some again someday. I thought they were really fun.

LOL! I thought I was wild keeping one little white mouse in a clear, plastic shoebox under my bed!

 Quote: betty landercasp

I was just a little girl then, knew nothing. Ended up with about 30 of them in a chest of drawers in my bedroom. Had an ancient book of pictures of "hutches" I found at a pet store. Seemed to me the dresser=hutch.
Mother had a fit about the chest of drawers. My clothes were on the floor and the dresser was full of guinea pigs. She had no idea how many I had. When she figured it out, she made me give them all away, it was a huge bummer!

You know, similar story. I had an irrational fear of snakes which I decided to snip in the bud when I was about 17 so I bought a blizzard corn snake by mail who was about as big as a pencil. When I was 19 my mom noticed A-rod slithering around his tank and demanded to know where and when I got this monster who was now about 6 feet long of happy corn snake. She made me get rid of him, so I actually sold him back to the breeder I got him from for about 3x what I paid for him in the first place. Ah memories.

Guinea pig housing is definitely an odd unstandardized thing. Knowing what I know now I'd do things very differently if I was serious about the mass numbers again.