What are the key points for building a porcupine breeding shed
When it comes to pigs, perhaps many people are fairly familiar with them, but not many people may know about porcupines. In fact, the wild porcupine is a nationally protected animal. Precisely because wild porcupines are quite popular among people, and wild resources are far from being able to meet people's demand, that is why so many people breed porcupines artificially.
Key points for building a porcupine breeding shed
1. The porcupine breeding shed should be spacious, ventilated, airy, well lit, and easy to clean;
2. The porcupine breeding shed should be built with a brick-and-tile structure, with a shed height of no less than 3 m; the size of the shed depends on the terrain and the scale of breeding;
3. The walls of the porcupine breeding shed should be fitted with multiple ventilation windows to facilitate air convection;
4. The water supply and power supply facilities in the porcupine breeding shed must be safe and easy to operate.
Analysis of porcupine breeding prospects
Judging from the current market, porcupines hold a large market in our country. The porcupine is a very precious terrestrial medicinal herbivorous animal; it combines meat, medicinal, and ornamental value, and also has high craft value. Therefore, porcupines are very popular among consumers. People's various demands for porcupines accumulate day by day, and the supply of porcupines is far from meeting the growing consumer demand.
Since the beginning of human history, people have had the habit of eating porcupine meat. Nowadays, with the improvement of people's living standards and the rapid development of the tourism industry, the meat-eating structure is also changing. People are very particular about the rationality of food nutritional components. Eating wild vegetables, wild grasses, wild birds, and wild animals has become a new taste, a new refinement, a new fashion, and a new trend.
Hotels and restaurants in the coastal cities of northwest China are especially fond of porcupine meat. Demand is increasing sharply. In regions such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, China, and Macao, China, it is regarded as a nutritious and health-care delicacy, with a high price, and the market is extremely hot. Wild resources are increasingly depleted and facing extinction. The government has listed the porcupine as a protected animal and prohibited hunting and trapping.
Therefore, domesticating, breeding, developing, and utilizing this porcupine, which has special value, special nutrition, a special flavor, and special uses, and whose whole body is a treasure, has special significance. It is a special breeding industry with the most development and utilization value and has very broad market prospects.
Advantages of porcupine breeding
1. Feed is common; it does not compete with people for grain, nor with pigs and sheep for feed. In terms of food, porcupines are similar to ordinary livestock. They eat a miscellaneous diet but eat little. Corn, sweet potatoes, soybeans, and other edible vegetarian foods are all delicacies to them. They mainly feed on the roots, stems, branches, leaves, and tubers of various plants, accounting for 80-90% of the feed.
According to the porcupine's feeding habits and nutritional needs, the feed can be mixed evenly in proportion and then fed. About 500-800 grams per day. It eats little concentrated feed. Each animal is fed 200-250 grams of cornmeal, wheat bran or rice bran, and rice per day, costing 3 jiao. Melon, fruit, and vegetable feed is generally fed in the morning, and it should be washed and disinfected before feeding. As long as they are fed enough, they will obediently grow meat and give birth. One porcupine consumes about 120 yuan worth of feed per year.
2. Pens are simple. They can be kept and raised in rural hillsides, caves, miscellaneous empty rooms, and pig sheds. As long as there is water and land for feed, it is fine. It can be said that families in any rural area have such breeding conditions, and porcupine breeding is very easy to promote.
3. Feeding and management are easy. Feed is given twice a day, in the morning and evening. You can also feed once every evening. The pen is cleaned once a day. Green feed is fed whole, without the need to cut, chop, steam, or boil. Ordinarily, one laborer can raise 400-500 animals per year. For large-scale breeding, no special person is needed to watch over them, the labor intensity is not great, and ordinary farmers can raise them.
4. Clean and hygienic. Porcupines do not defecate and urinate randomly everywhere. Each breeding room is designed with a manure pit, and they will very consciously defecate and urinate into the pit, so cleaning is not difficult.
5. Strong disease resistance. There is no plague, no vaccination is needed, and they rarely get sick. As long as feeding and management are in place, deaths rarely occur. There is also no need to use any additives or hormones. Only during the peak bacterial period in the spring plum rain season, feeding oxytetracycline calcium salt several times to prevent intestinal diseases is enough.
6. In terms of reproduction: under artificial feeding conditions, the growth rate is fast. At eight months, body weight can reach about 13 kg, becoming an adult porcupine. Porcupines can reach sexual maturity at eight months. Artificially bred porcupines can come into estrus and mate all year round, but estrus and mating are more active in spring and autumn. At this time, the porcupine's activity time increases and the intensity increases. One male porcupine usually mates with an estrous female porcupine (2-3) times, which consumes a great deal, and the feed intake also increases accordingly.
Construction methods for a porcupine breeding farm
1. Pig shed: An ideal pig shed is an important basic condition for doing a good job in pig production. Whether the pig shed is built reasonably directly affects the health of the porcupines, the performance of productivity, and the level of the breeder's labor efficiency. Therefore, the work of building the pig shed is crucial. To raise porcupines, we choose to build the farm on hilly slope land facing south, with good drainage conditions, thicker soil, and forest trees.
2. Floor: The floor of a porcupine pig shed should be firm, durable, moisture-proof, and slip-resistant, so most pen floors use concrete floors. Its characteristics are being firm and durable and easy to clean and disinfect. However, it is not conducive to keeping female porcupines and young porcupines warm. In winter, wooden boards or straw can be placed on the floor.
3. Roof: The roof plays the role of blocking wind and rain and keeping warm, and should have waterproof, thermal insulation, and load-bearing properties. Most porcupine farms use asbestos tiles or small blue tiles in a double-slope roof.
4. Drinking water equipment: Modern porcupine farms use automatic drinkers, which can supply the pigs with drinking water at any time and ensure the cleanliness and hygiene of the drinking water. Automatic drinkers are divided into four types: duckbill type, nipple type, sucking type, and cup type. At present, duckbill automatic drinkers are mostly used.
5. Aisles and passageways: A single-row or double-row pig shed is provided with one aisle, and a four-row pig shed is provided with two aisles. The aisle should not be too wide or too narrow. The aisle for breeding porcupines is 1.2 m wide, and an aisle of one meter is enough for commercial porcupines.
6. Manure drainage ditch: The manure drainage ditch in the porcupine pen should be covered with slatted floors or steel bars, at least 20 cm wide. The gaps in the ditch must not be too wide; 2-3 cm is enough.
7. Pool: The pool length is (150-200) cm, width (120-180) cm, and height (80-100) cm.
When it comes to porcupine breeding, I think everyone is not particularly familiar with it. After all, porcupine breeding is not particularly common on the market. The cost of porcupine breeding is somewhat more expensive than that of the pigs we usually raise, so the risks it must bear are slightly higher.