A Detailed Guide to Muskrat Farming Techniques and Feeding Management Methods
The muskrat is the only member of the genus Ondatra and is a large aquatic rodent native to North America, later introduced to Europe. They are called "marsh squirrels" in the Mid-Atlantic region. Adult muskrats are usually about 25-40 cm long and have a strong tail about 20-25 cm long. Their bodies are covered with a thick, brown, waterproof fur. Their hind legs are partly webbed, and they have a pair of small front legs like human hands. They can weigh up to 1700 grams, about four times the weight of a brown rat. During the breeding season from April to September, male muskrats can secrete muskrat musk through the muskrat glands of their reproductive system, which has a strong fragrant scent. Muskrat musk can both replace musk as a precious traditional Chinese medicinal material and serve as a raw material for making high-grade perfume.
Preparatory Work in the Early Stage of Farming Muskrats
1. Preparation of Cages and Housing
At present, the vast majority of artificially raised muskrats are kept in outdoor pen-style housing. The pens used for artificially raising muskrats in various places include flat pens, vertical pens, multi-tier pens, young muskrat pens, and simple pens, among others. A few are also kept indoors in cages. Outdoor pen-style housing is relatively economical and practical and easy for rural households to adopt, but it occupies a relatively large area, and the water pools used for raising them are also easily damaged by freezing in winter. Indoor cage rearing has a high stocking density and is suitable for urban areas or experimental rearing.
When using outdoor pen-style housing, there must be a raising site. The site must be surrounded by a wall, and a simple shed must be built over the site to block rain and snow and prevent exposure to the scorching sun. Inside the shed, the pens for raising muskrats are then placed. The raising site should be chosen in a place with sufficient water sources, shelter from the wind, a quiet environment, freedom from disturbance by people and livestock, and some distance from highways. To avoid mutual infection, muskrat raising sites must be far from livestock farms and poultry farms, generally requiring a distance of more than 500 m, and it is best to choose a location upwind or upstream of the water source. When raising them at home, existing conditions can also be fully utilized, using spare plots in front of or behind the house, but try as much as possible to avoid highways, railways, machine rooms, livestock pens, and so on, to ensure a quiet environment. The raising site must also be built in a place with extensive feed sources, or a place where various feeds can be purchased nearby.
The wall of the raising site can be built with bricks and stones, or enclosed with thin iron sheets or wire mesh. The suitable wall height is 1.2 m, because muskrats can climb along walls and escape, so the inner wall should be as smooth as possible, with no edges or corners. The simple shed can be built in a gable shape or a single-slope shape. Generally, wood, angle steel, bamboo, and other materials are used to make the frame, covered on top with asbestos tiles, felt paper, or thatch. The eaves height of the shed is 1.1-1.5 m, the width is 2 m for a single row of pens and about 4 m for double rows of pens, and the length can be determined according to the raising conditions, the number of animals raised, the scale, and the size of the site. In winter, a vegetable cellar or plastic greenhouse shed can also be used for raising them.
In terms of overall structure, the pen is mainly composed of three major parts:
(1) Nest chamber: This is the place where muskrats rest and give birth to and care for their young. It is divided into two parts, an inner chamber and an outer chamber. The inner chamber is larger and the outer chamber is smaller.
(2) Activity area: This is the place where muskrats move about, eat, and mate.
(3) Water pool: This is the place where muskrats bathe and mate, and it must be a watertight container. Whether it is the nest chamber or the pen, the upper cover must have a wire mesh screen, and a small door or hole must be left for feeding, catching, or observation, with its size determined by convenience of operation.
2. Preparation of Feed
Muskrats have extremely wide sources of feed, which are cheap and easy to obtain. Concentrate feed is mainly grain-based, such as cornmeal, barley meal, soybean cake meal, and wheat bran; root tuber crops include carrots, radishes, sugar beets, and potatoes; melons include pumpkins and squash; vegetables include cabbage, Chinese cabbage, and green vegetables; in addition, various fresh aquatic plants such as water chestnut grass, cattail, reeds, and water barnyard grass, as well as wild grasses, wild vegetables, and tender leaves, can all be used as green feed.
Of course, pen-raised muskrats also need a certain amount of animal-based feed (fish meal, milk powder) supplemented with yeast powder, bone meal, salt, and so on, to ensure nutritional needs at each developmental stage. The principle for formulating muskrat feed should be based on complete nutrition and variety. Usually in spring and summer, green feed is the main component, about 300 grams per adult muskrat per day, with concentrate feed as a supplement of about 50 grams; during the overwintering period, food intake drops sharply, and the daily ration is mainly carrots and radishes, paired with vegetables and concentrate feed totaling about 200 grams, but green hay should be provided.
Concentrate feed can be made into pellets, blocks, or steamed corn bread according to the formula, or prepared into a semi-dry, semi-moist form, but it must be cooked before feeding. Feeding should be carried out at fixed times and a fixed number of times.
Feeding and Management of Muskrats
1. Feeding and Management in Spring
Spring is precisely the period of preparation for mating and the mating period. In southern regions, the preparation for mating period begins around February, and the mating period begins in March; in northern regions, the preparation for mating period begins around March, and the mating period begins in April. The management points for each period are introduced as follows:
(1) Preparation for mating period: Conduct a comprehensive inspection of the herd, check the body condition of the breeding muskrats, supply water to the pool early, provide sufficient bedding straw in the nest, and increase the temperature in the nest cage (10-12°C) to promote estrus. Check whether the pairs in the nest cage are one male and one female. For male and female muskrats born the previous year that have not come into estrus, place a light bulb 50-60 cm from the pool cover from 6-9 pm and illuminate for several hours to promote estrus. At the same time, provide sufficient concentrate feed and roughage for the breeding period (mainly fresh poplar and willow branches, with additional vegetable feed such as cabbage and carrots), and do a good job in disease prevention. Add 1 kg of vitamin powder or malt supplement per 100 kg of concentrate feed, continuing until the mating period.
(2) Mating period: In addition to the same management as the previous period, the main task is to place branches or green grass in the activity area to provide a concealed environment, and at any time supply roughage for supplementary feeding and for the muskrats to build their own nests.
(3) Birthing and lactation period: In addition to supplementary feeding with concentrate feed for the breeding period, according to local conditions, soybean milk or cow's or sheep's milk should be mixed with feed to ensure normal lactation of the newborn muskrats and the nutrition needed by the female muskrat to conceive through mating. The roughage fed should be sufficient fresh tender grass and branches according to the season. Besides ensuring that they have enough fresh tender roughage to eat, this also allows them to carry it back into the nest to tightly block the water hole, preventing the young from crawling blindly and falling into the water pool.
(4) Rearing period: When the young muskrats are 28-30 days old after birth, they should be separated from the nest in a timely manner to facilitate the birth of the second litter and the mating and conception of the third litter. The separated young muskrats should be raised together with their littermates, and sufficient concentrate feed and palatable roughage should be provided. The bath water in the pool should be replenished at any time to avoid the young muskrats being unable to climb back home and drowning. After separation, the young muskrats can generally be reared in 3 months.
2. Feeding and Management in Summer
The management techniques in summer are almost the same as in spring, but attention should be paid to sanitation and disease prevention, disinfecting the site and tools, and timely prevention and treatment when disease is found. Because muskrats are herbivorous animals, antibiotics should be prohibited to avoid digestive system diseases caused by intestinal flora imbalance. In summer, mating, birthing, and rearing of muskrats can proceed simultaneously. Because they are polyestrous animals, they can accept mating again within a few days after giving birth, while also nursing their young well and possibly rearing more than two litters of young. Therefore, the site must be kept quiet, and sufficient, clean bath water must be provided.
3. Feeding and Management in Autumn
In autumn management, sufficient overwintering feed should be prepared and overwintering hay stored. In addition, selection and mating pairing should be carried out for reared muskrats, pairing male and female reared muskrats from different litters and entering overwintering rearing. If nest chambers are insufficient, they can be raised together in the same nest as a group for overwintering, and selection and mating pairing can be carried out when the preparation for mating period arrives. From late autumn to before winter, the pool water should be replaced with fresh water every other day or every few days until it freezes.
4. Management in Winter
Winter management mainly consists of providing sufficient straw for warmth, feeding feed and vegetables in a timely manner, and persisting in observation. The main methods are: fill the pool with dry grass and let the muskrats make their own grass burrows and live in an orderly manner. Feeding of feed and vegetables should be persisted once a day, and their activity should be observed and recorded well.