Key Points of Black Guinea Pig Breeding Technology and Daily Feeding Management Methods
More and more people are aware of the utilization value of black guinea pigs, and have also started black guinea pig breeding projects. Below is an explanation and analysis of some feeding issues for black guinea pigs, hoping it will be helpful to those of you who want to raise black guinea pigs.
Black Guinea Pig Breeding Technology
Feeding management is the key to black guinea pig breeding, with the focus on preventing feed from becoming moldy or spoiled. Compound feed is best mixed and fed fresh; when pelleted feed is fed directly, clean water should be provided for drinking, or the feed should be mixed with water and fed, with small meals more often. The daily ration cost is about 40 grams per animal, fed twice a day, keeping the feeding trough clean and hygienic. After feeding concentrated feed, fresh green feed should be placed in at the same time; green feed is best cut and fed on the same day, with each adult animal consuming about 250 grams of green feed per day, and feeding green feed contaminated by pesticides and the like should be prevented. The rearing room should be kept quiet, feces should be cleaned up every day, and utensils should be scrubbed clean frequently. Room temperature is best kept at 18°C-25°C, with relative humidity of 45%-55%, and good warmth retention should be maintained in winter. Prevent rodents and snakes from entering the rearing room, creating a comfortable living environment for the black guinea pigs. Keepers should be conscientious and responsible, pay attention to observation, and handle any problems promptly.
1. Spring management: Spring temperatures are suitable, so more green feed should be fed, breeding should be actively carried out, and a certain density and indoor environmental hygiene should be maintained.
2. Summer management: Summer temperatures are relatively high, so heat prevention and cooling work should be done conscientiously, indoor ventilation should be strengthened, the room should be kept clean and dry, feces should be removed promptly, density should be reduced, disinfection should be strictly carried out, and nutrition should be strengthened to keep the black guinea pigs' physique stable.
3. Autumn management: In autumn the sky is high and the air is crisp, and the temperature is pleasant; keep the indoor floor, cages, and feeding utensils clean, draw up a good breeding plan, prepare more green feed, and prevent feeding spoiled feed.
4. Winter management: Winter weather is cold, so good warmth retention work should be done, wind should be prevented from entering, and the black guinea pig rearing density can be appropriately increased. Because the supply of green feed is insufficient in winter, an appropriate increase in concentrated feed such as grains and bran can be fed. Black guinea pigs eat grass, are docile in temperament, reproduce quickly, have relatively few diseases, are simple to raise, require little investment, and show quick results. They are very suitable for laid-off workers and surplus rural labor to raise, and are suitable for all ages, so promoting black guinea pig breeding has very good social significance. It can achieve good social benefits and economic benefits.
Precautions for Breeding Black Guinea Pigs
1. For guinea pigs, do not believe in guaranteed buyback; the guinea pigs you raise yourself need to be sold by yourself. Why is there no guaranteed buyback? There are several reasons: the selling price of guinea pigs is not high. For example, if you are 1,000 kilometers away from the breeding stock supplier, the transport, packaging, and quarantine costs for one kilogram of guinea pigs amount to half of your breeding cost. After transporting them to the breeding stock supplier, how much profit do you have left? Therefore, small-scale long-distance sales of any animal have relatively high costs. Those people who claim to sell seedlings and buy back the animals never mention the transport issue at buyback, while farmers, upon seeing buyback, think they have taken a reassurance pill. They are precisely exploiting this psychology. After farmers raise the animals and transport them to the seller of breeding stock who offers buyback: breeding cost + packaging and transport cost + not meeting their required low price, and in the end all the losses fall on the farmers.
2. Regarding preparatory work and investment before guinea pig breeding: First, make sure there is enough green feed, and build guinea pig breeding ponds. Guinea pig breeding ponds are very simple: a square pond 20 cm high, with an area of one square meter is enough. Facility investment is very low among animal breeding operations. Building a pond with an area of 100 square meters costs less than 2,000 yuan (not including the building); the breeding house only needs to keep out wind and rain in winter and provide rain cover and ventilation in summer. No heating is needed in winter, and installing some fans in summer is enough. Plant some forage grass in advance. If the local area has abundant vegetable scraps and other green feed, you can start breeding directly. We have promoted guinea pig breeding in many places domestically, and the breeding has basically been successful. Some farmers, relying on guinea pig specialty dishes, have brought very good business to their restaurants.
3. Raising guinea pigs requires enough green feed, which can be scraps from various vegetables, corn leaves, sugarcane leaves, abundant various tree leaves (more than 95% of tree leaves are food for guinea pigs), carrots, sweet potatoes, and so on. However, it is recommended to plant some forage grass as a supporting measure. Generally speaking, to raise 200 breeding guinea pigs together with their offspring, at least more than 3 mu of forage grass must be planted.
4. The best time to introduce guinea pigs is in the three seasons of spring, autumn, and winter; introduction during high-temperature seasons is not recommended.
5. The entry of guinea pig breeding into the market is basically at zero across all parts of the country, and all markets must be developed by yourself. Guinea pig meat is indeed a very good green food from herbivorous animals, with low breeding costs, few diseases, extremely low facility investment, and simple management. Before breeding, it is recommended that you must come in person to inspect and taste it, and only proceed with breeding after you consider it feasible. Guinea pigs have multiple breeds; the breed we raise is one of them domestically, one that reproduces and grows relatively quickly and is easy to raise. Guinea pigs take about three months from birth to about 650 grams.
Prospects for Black Guinea Pig Breeding
As the world population continues to increase, the per capita cultivated land area continues to shrink, and the reality of food shortages is becoming increasingly serious, while the contradiction between people and livestock competing for grain is becoming increasingly sharp. For this reason, attention must be paid to developing grain-saving animal husbandry, and using more grass and agricultural by-products to develop herbivorous animals to buffer the contradiction between people and livestock competing for grain is of important strategic significance. Black guinea pigs are mainly grass-fed and are a typical grain-saving small domestic animal. In the vast rural areas there are many grassy hillsides, and feed resources are very abundant. Black guinea pigs can effectively utilize local grass feed, enabling every farming household to obtain enormous economic benefits and high-grade wild-flavor natural black nutritional tonics in a very short time.
The global breeding industry is developing toward miniaturization of meat livestock and poultry, and miniature livestock and poultry are expected to become an important source of meat in developing countries. According to many years of investigation by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, developing miniature livestock and poultry breeding industries in various parts of the world has great advantages. “Things are precious when rare, and food is nourishing when black.” Since the 1990s, a “black” whirlwind has swept the globe, and black foods have been listed as the fourth generation of natural functional foods after green foods. Modern scientific research has proven that black foods not only have high nutritional value, but also have the special functions of scavenging free radicals in the human body, resisting oxidation, lowering blood lipids, resisting tumors, and resisting aging.
What Utilization Value Do Black Guinea Pigs Have
1. The fur of black guinea pigs is black and glossy, with hair 2~3 cm long and a thin and soft skin board. It is a very good processing raw material for fur clothing and craft ornaments. Its processing performance and decorative performance can rival mink, and it has very high utilization value.
2. Black guinea pig meat is tender, without a fishy or muttony smell, and tastes especially delicious. It is an ideal nutritional tonic and health food. Nutrition experts call black guinea pigs beauty meat for women, bodybuilding meat for young people, nourishing meat for children, and anti-aging meat for the elderly, and it has the “title of animal ginseng.” Data from a test report by Yangzhou University shows that the protein content of dried black guinea pig meat is as high as 97.1%, 5.5 times higher than pork, 4.6 times higher than beef, 8.3 times higher than mutton, 4.3 times higher than chicken, 5.6 times higher than duck, and 5.1 times higher than grass carp; it contains only 14.8% fat. Black guinea pig meat is high in protein, low in fat, and low in cholesterol, and contains abundant vitamins and trace elements. Among them, the iron content is 3 times that of soft-shelled turtle, and the contents of calcium, phosphorus, zinc, and selenium also far exceed those of other meat foods. It is also rich in melanin, which has a bidirectional regulating effect on the human body, and is a typical black health food.
3. Black guinea pig blood and guinea pig testicles can be used through bioengineering to produce medicinal raw materials in tight supply on the international market, and have relatively obvious therapeutic effects on stomach diseases, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and so on.
In fact, the black guinea pig is a very gentle small animal, small in appearance and completely black all over, very cute. It will not attack or hurt people, lives in groups, but is very timid and easily startled.