Capybara Madness » FACute

Capybara Hair

Caplin Rous — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:51:53 +0000

My hair stands up when I am happy

In my recent blog poll, my hair/fur came in a distant seventh in the list of features that people most like about me. I think that is because they don’t understand how wonderful it is. My hair really is one of my best features and it is seriously under-appreciated.

Capybara hair is pretty unique, even among rodents. Wikipedia defines three types of hair in mammals: down hair, awn hair and guard hair. Guard hair is the longest of the three and is typically coarse, sparse, straight hairs that stick out through the other two layers. That might be typical but it is not the case with us capybaras. In fact, we don’t have the other two layers of hair at all, all we have are guard hairs. And they are coarse, sparse and straight.

My hair is so coarse that many people express surprise when they pet me. My owner says my hair feels like wire but a lot of people compare it to the husk of a coconut. I am not soft like a guinea pig.

My hair is so sparse that I really don’t even have any in a lot of places. For example, most of my belly is naked along with the insides of my legs. And even where I have hair, you can usually see right down to my skin. This is good because it would make it really easy for my owner to find any fleas on me if I ever got fleas, which I don’t.

Most of my hair is long but not all of it. On my nose, my hair is maybe one eighth of an inch long. Around my eyes it gets to about one quarter inch. As you move back along my body, it gets longer and longer. The longest hairs are four to five inches and are along my back and flanks. My owner made the drawing below to show how my hair grows.

This kind of hair works great for a semi-aquatic animal like me. It protects me from the sun when I need it but it also lets the sun come through to my skin to warm me up if I’m cold. The photo at the top and the video below show what great control I have over whether my hair lies flat or stands on end. That’s pretty handy for thermoregulation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Capybara hair is not waterproof but it dries very, very quickly. When I get out of the pool, I give one quick shake and I’m basically dry. I don’t need a towel and I don’t drip water all over the house.

Four-month-old me with short hair

Baby capybaras have relatively short hair all over their bodies. It isn’t until we are about a year old that some hair really start getting longer.

My hair is even more special than your average capybara’s because I have a little tuft of long hairs right between my ears. You can see it in the photo above. As far as I know, I am the only capybara with that extra flair, and that makes me special.

FACute Part 2: How I Grew When I Grew Up

Caplin Rous — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:55:29 +0000

If you haven’t read the first part of my FACute, you can find it here, it’s pretty good, if I do say so myself. But I always intended to add more information, it’s just hard to get around to it, but here we go!

One thing I get asked a lot is how fast capybaras grow. That’s a good question but I don’t have a really good answer. The only thing I know is how fast I grew. When I was a baby, my owner was quite conscientious about weighing me. And she made all kinds of fancy charts too. Here’s a chart of my weight up until I pretty much leveled off at 100 lbs.

My growth chart

My growth, charted

% weight change over time

Weight change per day over time

So what did all result in? Beautiful me! The image below shows all of my measurements as of October 2009.

Me, measured

FACute – All your questions answered!

Caplin Rous — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:11:18 +0000

This is your chance to impress you friends, neighbors, parents, teachers, students, coworkers, employers, employees, friends, enemies and strangers with actual knowledge rather than just stuff you made up to sound smart. Read this blog and you can sound smart by actually knowing something! And it won’t be hard either. The capybara facts covered in this blog entry are fun and easy to remember. You just have to remember to read it. Which you can do right now so you don’t forget. Okay, here goes:

General rodent facts:

Rabbits are NOT rodents.
Capybaras are rodents.
One quarter of all mammal species are rodents.
Rodents have four big teeth called incisors at the front of their mouths.
Rodent teeth grow throughout their lives and are razor sharp. ADVICE: don’t get bitten by a rodent.
Some rodents, like beavers, can actually cut down trees with their super-sharp teeth.
Beavers are the world’s second largest rodents.
All rodents have bacteria that can digest cellulose in their gut. Cellulose is the stuff that makes the cell walls of plants. Mammals cannot digest it on their own.
Some mammals, the ruminants including cows, chew their cud to get the nutrients released by bacteria in their stomachs that digest cellulose. This is like throwing up into your mouth and then eating it again.
Rodent bacteria are in their hind gut so must defecate and then eat the poop. Eating poop is called coprophagy.

General capybara facts:

Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents.
Our scientific name is Hydochoenus hydrochaeris.
We are in a strictly South American group of rodents called the Caviidae.
Some of our closest relatives are guinea pigs and maras.
There are some wild capybaras in Louisiana and southern Florida.
Baby capybaras can walk as soon as they are born.
Capybaras mostly eat grass. We are herbivores.
Mostly we poop in the water, but the special poop we eat, we eat directly as it comes out of us on land, not in the water.
We have very coarse hair that is also very sparse. You can see skin through it most places.
Our fur dries very quickly.
We puff up our fur when we are happy.
Capybaras have little tiny tails that are just nubs. We can’t move them at all.
We like to live in marshes.
Our feet are webbed.
We have three toes in the back and four in the front.
Our main predators are jaguars, anacondas, caiman, crocodiles, large raptors, and people.
Our skin is very, very tough so, tragically, we make good leather.
All capybaras are basically the same color.
A typical capybara weighs between 120 – 140 lbs.
Capybaras live about 12-14 years in captivity and less in the wild.
Capybaras live in herds or bands in the wild with one or a few males and several females and babies.
Capybaras do not dig.

Facts about me:

I am 3rd or 4th generation captive bred.
I was born on July 10, 2007 in Nacogdoches, Texas.
My parents are carnies. They go around to small fairs as a sideshow attraction.
I was one of five babies in my litter and the only one left when my owner came to pick me out.
I was 11 days old when my owner got me and I weighed about 3 lbs.
I reached 100 lbs and stayed there at around 18 months of age.
I was house-trained from the first day home. My owner just put out a bowl of water for me to go in.
I know several tricks including: sit, stand (beg), go up, do a circle, shake, wave and something called tap-a-tap-a
My favorite food is blueberry yogurt.
I do not like fruit pieces in my yogurt. I have to eat around them.
My tongue is so short it doesn’t come out of my mouth so I have to rub my nose on the wall and then lick the excess yogurt off the wall. I will also use a chair for that purpose.
I also love fruit popsicles.
And best of all, yogurt popsicles.
I go swimming every single day at least once, unless it is too cold.
Most days I also take a long soak in the bathtub.
When I was growing up I went through an aggressive phase and I bit my owner.
I am sometimes territorial but I am always very gentle away from home where I don’t think you’re trying to steal my stuff.
I can “eep” very loudly but I only do that when my owner abandons me.
I like to bark and run up and down the hallway.
When I am happiest, I sound like a Geiger counter.
When I’m excited, I popcorn like a guinea pig.
When the weather is cold, I like to sleep under the covers with my humans.
When the weather is hot, I sleep on the floor next to my owner.

If you want a pet capybara:

Read my whole blog and watch my YouTube videos at www.YouTube.com/CaplinCapybara.
Read Capyboppy by Bill Peet.
Capybaras are a lot of work, need lots of room and a swimming pool, can be territorial and have big, sharp teeth. We are not the right pet for everyone…or very many people.
Make sure you have the right facilities to keep a capybara in your climate.
Check your local laws and agricultural office to make sure we are legal where you live.
Most “pet” capybaras live outside and are treated more like goats.
Don’t get a pet capybara if you have young children. We are still wild animals and won’t tolerate half of what a dog or cat will.
Contact Mary Lee at capybaras.org. She is in Arkansas. Or Justin at Kapi’yva Exotics. He is in Houston.

You could impress everyone you know just like this girl did.

My owner loves me.

Photo facts

I weighed only 3 lbs in this photo.

A cat harness like this one was too big for me.

Porcupines are the 3rd largest rodents.

Me with my co-pet Seabiscuit when I was 8 months old.

My giant rodent teeth.

I am not a morning animal.

Capybaras are great swimmers.

This is why we need rain.