My name is Derek Pike.
I've been having guinea pigs since I was eight years old,
and I've been judging guinea pigs for, dare I say,
about 55, 60 years,
and, er, I love these animals.
They're not pets. They're part of my life.
I can see beauty in that,
where a lot of people think, "Oh, that's a guinea pig."
Small livestock showing is part of
the whole agricultural sort of heritage, really,
and we're very lucky that, erm, the Tendring Hundred Show here
give us the opportunity to hold a guinea pig show,
or cavies, as we call them,
and it's very much a chance for people to show their cavies,
but also for the public to see
what small livestock keeping is all about.
This one, 51. Texture's nice.
He's got curly belly.
We ask members of the public to vote for their favourite pig,
and usually by the end of the day
we've got sort of our votes in their thousands,
so which is... which is really quite something.
It seems that showing is always hard work,
no matter the size of the creature, great or small.
There's an awful lot of effort goes into just one day
and I think that's magical.