Key Technical Points for Summer Feeding and Management of Muskrats

Summer is the stage of sexual activity for muskrats and also a critical period for raising them. The task during this period is to ensure the breeding capacity of muskrats and guarantee the smooth progress of birthing and rearing. The main management points are:

Ensure the supply of fresh tender roughage, appropriately supplement animal-based feed such as milk powder and fish meal, and continue supplementing vitamins such as VA, VB, and VE to improve sperm quality, the ovulation and lactation capacity of females, ensure a quiet environment, and reduce unnecessary stress stimuli. Ensure the pool water is clean to prevent disease, strictly prohibit frequent catching of muskrats, and prevent miscarriage or death.

Summer management should focus on five aspects: ensuring adequate nutrition, providing a quiet and shaded environment, repeatedly providing bath water, preventing the occurrence and development of disease, and improving the survival rate of young muskrats.

Feed: Summer feed quality should be good, the feed should be diverse, green feed should be fresh with good palatability, and vitamins and animal-based feed should be increased. It is necessary to ensure the nutritional needs for breeding, birthing, and rearing. In summer, because breeding, pregnancy, birthing, and nursing are carried out simultaneously and in an overlapping manner, the approach must be strict. The nutritional standards for muskrats in summer can refer to the standards for the muskrats' breeding period.

Quiet: In summer, breeding, birthing, and nursing of muskrats can occur at the same time, because muskrats are polyestrous animals and can accept mating again within a few days after giving birth (blood mating), while also nursing the young, and may also be raising the first or second litter of young. Therefore, ensuring the quietness of the site is very important. Keepers are required to move gently, avoid making loud noises, absolutely prohibit arbitrary inspection of nests, and decline all outside visits. In addition, keepers and managers should not wear heavy makeup or bright clothing, and stress factors and strong stimuli should be minimized. Ensure that muskrats quietly pass through the stages of breeding, pregnancy, birthing, and rearing. Water supply: Water supply is an important part of raising muskrats in summer. Summer water supply must be timely, frequently changed, and hygienic. In southern regions, the water should be changed twice a day, and drinking troughs should be added when necessary. The pool is a necessary facility for muskrats to play, mate, defecate, discharge waste, transport food, and cool down. For this reason, water supply is also a key measure for improving the birthing and survival of muskrats.

Disease prevention: Various diseases are likely to occur in summer, especially during the moldy rainy season. Raising muskrats must also implement the principle of prevention being more important than treatment. A strict feed management system must be established to guard the gate of disease entering through the mouth. A system for epidemic prevention and disinfection of the site and tools must be established to guard the gate of disease transmission. Report illness promptly and guard the gate of timely prevention and treatment. During continuous rainy days, generally 2.0 mg of olaquindox per 10 animals should be fed to prevent disease. Muskrats are herbivores, and antibiotics should be absolutely prohibited to avoid digestive system diseases caused by disturbance of the intestinal flora.

Rearing: Rearing is the fundamental issue of summer management and also the ultimate goal. To ensure the survival rate and rearing rate, it is necessary to achieve a reasonable ration, meticulous management, timely separation, and attention to epidemic prevention.

For weaned young muskrats being raised, the concentrate should use the feed formula for the muskrats' rearing period and be supplied in sufficient quantity. For young muskrats not yet weaned that have already produced a second or third litter, the feed formula for the breeding period should still be supplied in sufficient quantity, and the concentrate still needs supplemental multivitamins and bone meal to ensure the growth and development needs of the young and juvenile muskrats. Roughage should be provided as a sufficient amount of fresh tender green grass. In management, ensure water supply and water quality cleanliness, and the pool water volume should be sufficient. Pay close attention to pool water leakage to avoid young and juvenile muskrats being unable to climb into the nest chamber or onto the exercise yard due to lowered water level and thus drowning. Generally, the pool water surface is required to seal the entrance of the hole or be no lower than 5 cm. At the same time, strengthen taming management, place scattered feed mixed with water, and ensure that young and juvenile muskrats eat at the feeding platform in the exercise yard, so that they have long-term contact with keepers, making them not afraid of people or frightened, and convenient for feeding. Feeding scattered feed can also prevent concentrate from being carried back into the nest and stored in large amounts and becoming moldy, which induces disease in young and juvenile muskrats and makes it difficult to observe feed intake. After weaning, young muskrats can be raised in groups of 5-10 by family unit to avoid disrupting the pedigree and affecting the quality of breeding muskrats.

Weaning should be timely. Otherwise, when the female gives birth to a second or third litter, she will move the first-litter young to the corner of the nest chamber. For this reason, the nest should be designed as a multi-story structure, which is conducive to raising multiple litters in the same nest. This provides empty nests for older young muskrats, but the first-litter young do not need to be separated too early. When the second litter is about to be born, separate the first and second litters together and raise them communally in the same nest. This rearing effect is best. Epidemic prevention is the guarantee for muskrat rearing and should be strictly implemented according to epidemic prevention procedures. In addition, during the rainy season, feed olaquindox in the same way, 2.0 mg per 10 animals, until the young muskrats reach a body weight of 500 grams, at which point rearing is considered complete.