What are the development directions and prospects for porcupine farming?
The porcupine is in fact a Class III nationally protected animal in China, and when it was nearing extinction, it was included in the national list of protected wild animals. But in recent years, as people have become familiar with the porcupine's nutritional value, more and more people have taken up porcupine farming, so what are the development directions and prospects for porcupine farming? Let's take a look together below.
I. What are the development directions and prospects for porcupine farming?
1. From the perspective of economic value, (1) High food value: because of its high nutritional value, the porcupine has long been known as the “ginseng” of meats, and is a top-grade dish on modern dining tables, deeply loved by diners. (2) High medicinal value. Porcupine meat, porcupine quills and its organs can all be used as medicine, with extremely high medicinal value, so it can be said that every part of it is a treasure. (3) It has unique ornamental value. Exhibited in zoos. (4) Craft value. Porcupine quills can be made into floats and high-end ornaments.
2. From the perspective of modern dietary concepts: porcupine meat is tender and rich in nutrients, and whether steamed, boiled or fried, or stewed, simmered or roasted, it has a delicate fragrance, fresh taste and unique flavor, making it a top-grade mountain delicacy and game meat. The porcupine has excellent characteristics such as high protein, high glutamic acid, low fat, low cholesterol and good taste, which conform to modern people's scientific dietary concept of both nutrition and health care, and it is deeply favored by consumers.
3. From the perspective of the consumer market, at present the only mature domestic consumer market in China is Guangzhou, where annual consumption is about 40,000 animals, consuming 75% of the country's commercial porcupines, and 90% of the domestic market still remains to be developed, which shows that the market potential is enormous.
4. From the perspective of farming risk, the porcupine's immunity and disease resistance are very strong, it never needs vaccinations throughout its life, diseases are very few and easy to treat, and since records began no case of large-scale group disease or death has ever been found, so compared with other projects the risk is smaller.
II. Key points for porcupine farming
1. Feed quality
In the process of raising porcupines, many people like to ask about green feed and cook it before feeding, but we do not know that this is harmful to the porcupine's growth: not only is the feed's original nutrition not as great as before boiling, but it also easily causes porcupine food poisoning, so when raising them the feed must not be cooked. Mashing the feed is fine. More importantly, we must pay attention to the fact that we cannot feed moldy and unhygienic feed. We must feed fresh grass picked the same day, otherwise it is very likely to cause porcupine poisoning.
2. Feeding
As we just said, many friends usually feed some green feed when raising porcupines. Although green feed is more suitable for the porcupine's growth, after all it contains incomplete components. Therefore, when raising porcupines, we cannot feed only green feed, nor feed too much, especially to the young pups, because the young pups have been eliminated and their chemical system has not yet fully formed, and green feed contains a large amount of water. If fed too much, it will cause diarrhea and other gastrointestinal diseases.
3. Emergency measures
In the process of raising pigs, we can control things artificially, such as feed and pig housing, but natural disasters are hard to predict.
Therefore, corresponding emergency measures should be taken according to different weather conditions. For example, in spring, when the temperature has not yet fully recovered and the temperature difference between day and night is also large, we should do a good job of protecting the pigs from the cold in good time.