New Zealand Peruvian History
In the 1950's, a woman migrated from England to NZ with her English Peruvians and Abyssinian cavies. There were no cavy shows or clubs, so she mixed mated her cavies and sold the babies as pets. She lived in Wellington. Christa Krey found her when she was looking for a pet for her 9-year-old son and saw some of her Longhairs and bought some for herself. They had more than two rosettes and a coarser coat.
When a meeting to form a cavy club was held in the Wellington area in January 1976, more than 70 people turned up with some of their cavies. Many of these were NZ Peruvian type with four or more rosettes, probably all going back to the 1950's pigs. Lots of these people wanted to show, but English pedigree imports were few at that stage and did not breed fast enough. Therefore, the Committee of the newly formed National Cavy Club of New Zealand (later renamed New Zealand Cavy Club because they were not allowed the word National when incorporating), drew up standards for two breeds, the NZ Plume and the NZ Peruvian, for members to work with to produce showable cavies.
There were some lovely NZ Peruvians shown for some time until more pedigree stock from English imports became available and most breeders turned to those. Sadly, the NZ Peruvians were bred with the imported English Peruvians that had a much finer coat. Therefore, NZ Peruvians with the thick coarser coat disappeared.
