coat variation

[lambelly]

My female has a decidedly coarser coat than her male counterpart as well as being quite a bit more red. Also, she has a bit more black around her face. The male has no black that I can really see and is a bit more tan. Plus the female is, of course, quite a bit smaller than the male.

I was wondering how much variation exists with hair on prairie dogs. I believe they're both the same type of prairie dog (black-tailed), but they're just so different!

[Deana]

When we decided to keep 5 babies, 2 years ago, I was afraid we wouldn't be able to tell them apart, especially when they started shedding. They change so fast. They came from 4 different litters. Two of them are brother & sister & look almost identical, except for size. Then there's Norman, who looks totally different from the others. Once when he was shedding, he looked like he had a rubber band around him. His head,chest & front legs had short hair. The rest of him had long. The last time he shed, he got like racing stripes on his face. This resembled a horny-toad. We never know what to expect from Norm. Most of them don't change much when they shed. I have a male that has greasy fur, probably from bad eating habits. He had a very bad "diet" before he came to live with us. One of his favorites, was chili dogs. He loves his veggies now. Deana