Kurtan

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Kurtan was born on the 30th of November 1999, and she is an alpaca. She looks very pretty with her golden and white fur, she is actually nicely dutch marked. Kurtan's real name is Coastwind's Curtain Call. In the photo to the left you can see what she looks like... In this photo she is already pregnant by Careless Whisper (see below)...

She was already called Kurtan when I bought her. I think maybe Kurtan is short for Curtain Call... (it might be in Swedish!).

I bought Kurtan for a special reason: a lunkarya breeder I knew back then bought a Lunkarya male - called Cattla's Careless Whisper - that she suspected might be carrying alpaca... (the rex gene) He looked a whole lot like Kurtan, actually!

So she wanted an alpaca (or a texel or a merino) to testmate with Careless Whisper, in order to see if there would be any alpaca babies (or texels or merinos). If any such babies were produced this male is certainly carrying alpaca and should not be used for further Lunkarya breeding since there is no reason for mixing these genes. So right after I bought Kurtan she moved in with Careless Whisper... :-) This was at the breeder's, so I did not get to meet her at first!

Kurtan eventually arrived at my home on the 1th of August 2001, already pregnant. Then I learned that she was very tame and loved being cuddled! She looks a lot different from my Lunkaryas, too...

Kurtan arrived here in the morning when I was asleep, so I just let her out on the floor with my herd and went back to sleep again... But I was soon awakened by screams: Kurtan attacked my pigs! So I jumped out of bed and shouted bad words at her... And then I thought she might never like me after such a welcome! (Kurtan bit C three times in the face and I had to give C antibiotics because she got so swollen in her face...)
But Kurtan seems to have a short memory, she is very tame - and also very pretty!

Her long fur is extremely soft compared to that of my lunkaryas. And her curls are so small. All the Lunkaryas have big curls and rough hair standing on end while Kurtan has tiny curls and her fur looks well combed all the time! Also her fur parts parts itself along her spine - that is never seen in Lunkaryas. In the photo above you can see Kurtan and one of Lunkarya females called Binky.

In the middle of the day on the 22nd of September 2001 Kurtan har two babies, also white and golden in colour. There is one male called Aristoteles Hisisni (to the left in this photo) and one female called Aristoteles Hani. Hani is a peruvian, and Hisini has curls in his fur. But it is too soon to see if he is an alpaca or a Lunkarya. He'll have to be maybe 4 weeks old before you can see which he is, when his fur starts to part itself along his spine if he is an alpaca. A Lunkarya is supposed to have rough hair, but when you cross a Lunkarya with a Texel, Alpaca or Merino you get softer hair in the babies. Normally you only mate Lunaryas with another Lunkarya or with a Sheltie, Coronet or, preferably, a peruvian, that has no texels, Merinos or alpacas in the pedigree.
Hisini turned out to be a Lunkarya.

What happened next was that the lunkarya breeder said that she wanted to know if the genes for Lunkarya and Alpaca/Texel/Merino was on the same locus or not. So I decided to testmate!

What I did was to mate Hisini (see photo to the right), being Lunkarya and carrying alpaca, with an Alpaca. Actually we mated him with his mother, Kurtan... since it seemed hard at the time get hold of another alpaca and Kurtan already was there. We knew that if they produced one baby that was not curly these genes were not on the same locus. And they did just that! They had one baby that was not curly, and two that was curly... This proves that the genes for Lunkarya and the rex gene are on different loci. But I still have not seen what a cavy that are both Lunkarya and Alpaca at the same time look like! (It has to have at least one Lunkarya gene and two Rex genes... Hisini has only one of each.)

When Kurtan was pregnant with this last litter she got sick, probably toxemia, and I had to hand feed her and give cortisone. The cortisone had a bad impact on her unborn babies so they was unhealthy. One died at birth on the 29th of January and the next on the 4th of February. The last baby died on the 7th of February. I named the two living babies Jojje and Jeia, I didn't know they were going to die.

Now Kurtan is retired from breeding and Hisini and Hani have moved to new homes (see photo of Hani to the left). Kurtan had 2 litters with 5 babies (Hisini & Hani, 1 stillborn and Jeia & Jojje that died at an early age). Kurtan was a pretty part of my cavy herd.

Here is Kurtan, almost 4 years old, lying with her dog... Yes, it is a dog's paw she is almost lying on, she has her own favourite dog...
Kurtan is a very nice pet, and she has her own ways. She is extremely fond of the dry bread we here in Sweden call knäckebröd. She is so fond of it that she begs for it loudly every time her bowl is empty. Of course the other pigs also eats it, but only Kurtan is crazy about it.

Here is Kurtan a few months later. She is now 4 years old and safe and sound together with her favourite dog. She is more of a dog's pig than any of the other pigs. Well C was too, but she is not among the living anymore.

Aren't they cute together? They even sort of have the same colour!

Don't let your cavies meet any dog, just because I do, this dog is especially trained to like small pets and has never hurt any small pet ever. Most dogs would try to kill a cavy of they could.

Kurtan died on the 24th of July 2004.