farm guinea pigs (meat cavy!)

[itsasmallfarm]

never heard of any one eating guinea pig before, just did a google search of it and ya people in south america do eat guinea pig.

i don't think i could eat it but not going to judge people who do eat it, as at the moment i want to try muskrat and beaver. (yes i want to eat muskrat i have seen people eat it and i think it might be good meat and with beaver they say it taste like roast beef)

so i have to ask, what does guinea pig taste like? how do you cook it? is it any thing like rabbit? i love rabbit meat (both wild and tame). also how do you raise them? just like rabbits?

 

[Zoomie]

@itsasmallfarm I'm going out on a limb here because I've never eaten cavy. But I'm going to say it tastes like... wait for it... CHICKEN!!

I think it's a pretty fascinating idea and I am really curious how this will work out for these people who are trying it.

 

[Mylied]

I always thought the eating kind was bigger and called cuy. Ive seen pics of some pretty big ones. But I guess meat is meat.

I think the problem guinea pig pet people have with breeding them is that there is an overabundance of them that get dumped in shelters and not all pet breeders have nice, clean set ups like you do. You're breeding for meat, so that's different. Your animals won't end up abused or in shelters. And we were told in my vet tech school breeding for the first time after a certain age is dangerous because the babies could get stuck. They breed guinea pigs at my school.

 

[CertifiedChaser]

I had this same idea a while back so I could feed my dogs. Seemed like too much work removing the fur for me to bother with personally. Also not cheap. Petco and petsmart only seem to have guineas for like $30+/- when I've checked. Maybe it's seasonal? But I'm very interested in how this turns out! I love this site...
Also it's not just guinea pig pet owners that are critical about breeding and raising for meat. Check out the pigeon website.
After I get my quail and rabbits set up I'm moving back to aquaponics, going to try and get some pigeons, and maybe with some cuy in the future!

 

[Bug n Flock]

LOL, no: Pig people are anti breeding. period. end of story. for any reason, ever? ever.

There is no "responsible breeder" in their eyes. They have this belief that 20% of pregnancies result in the death of the mom and/or babies. It's like they don't realize zero breeding = zero pigs, and zero purposeful breeding means all litters are inbred "oops" litters.

 

[Hardwarehank]

Warning on your pigs: one of your boars is a roan. Whiskey. Look up roaning, as it has a lethal superform if you breed roan-roan.


Sorry for my lack of replies here! LOVE that this thread has been attracting attention! I've been busy with suddenly taking in an underweight and lice infested rescue probable homing pigeon(she's great. And has her own thread in the pigeons section of this forum!). O.O And getting ready for a family reunion thing a few states over(leaving tomorrow morning and bringing someone special to meet my family for the first time... exciting and terrifying both!).

The babies weaned yesterday. I'm selling the two males from this run as pets, and if they don't sell before tomorrow, they will be coming to the reunion and maybe I can sell them to someone in my family with kids. Or who wants to start a herd. Or both! I'm from a farm-y family so you never know. Our reunion is a pig roast at a farm with a pig someone in the family raised. Real fun time.

I'm keeping the two girls, but I have them separated out now in a smaller pen within the big run they have so I don't have to fuss with introductions when I decide they're old enough to breed. Pocket was probably between 4-6 months old when I bred her. I do have a second sow who is over 2 years old with an unknown history in with my male, though. The whole "don't breed for the first litter after 9 months" thing is silly. The bones don't fuse at some magic age, the ligaments just stiffen with age as they do in all mammals. The guinea pig community is the most rabidly anti-breeding community I have ever encountered, and it blows my mind. These animals were domesticated as livestock and used as lab test subjects so much so that their name is nearly synonymous with being a test subject! Why would that be the case if they couldn't be bred? Heh, but I digress.

Pocket started to show about 3 weeks or so before she had the pups, but I knew she was pregnant before then based on behavior changes. Pocket is typically a high energy PITA to the other pigs, running around and just generally being a pest. Then she suddenly stopped doing that, hid a lot, slept a lot and drank a ton.

I wish I could do pigs outdoors here, but I am in the city and have to deal with neighbors. I'm in the historic district so have a grand old palace of a house, but still not much land at-all and very judge-y neighbors. Oh well, I do critters in the house. But I should be moving rather shortly to a large lovely property in the mountains with someone with very similar goals to myself and we are very eager to expand the pig project and put them on pasture when we do so. Why do you offer so much feed in addition to the grass?

Not that I disagree with you but not entirely sure he's roan or if it's just a light undercoat(if that's a thing). Not the best picture I know but the lighter portion seems a lighter shade of the topcoat versus being white blended in with the dominant color. I'm pretty new to guinea pigs so I can't be sure either way. Here's a closer picture that might help with identification.

I'm in the suburbs but luckily have some social capital built up with the neighbors and they're all pretty laid back, although the ones who have asked about the guinea pigs I've told I'm breeding them for pets(not a complete lie, they are being bred for Buford). The one neighbor who's got a slight hippy streak to her thinks my little lawnmowers are "real cool!". Hope you get to move to that property you mention soon. All I can think of some days is what I'll do when I finally get that hobby farm of my dreams.

I'm going to take my chances with the sows who's age/history I don't know about and we'll see what happens. Hopefully they start showing soon, it's getting to be close.

I offer them free feed from the J feeders so I don't have to refill it every day. Trying to keep this project as low on the time investment scale as possible while not compromising on their well-being. Would rather deal with problems resulting from overnourishment than undernourishment but we'll see, like I said I'm pretty new to guinea pigs. The grass from what I understand doesn't give much in the way of nutrients but more of a source of roughage. I might be able to get away with just all grass plus free choice hay, plus fresh veggies but there are minerals and b vitamins in the grains that I figure they need as well.

Good luck with the reunion, introducing special someone's to the family for the first time is never easy! Enjoy yourself.

I had this same idea a while back so I could feed my dogs. Seemed like too much work removing the fur for me to bother with personally. Also not cheap. Petco and petsmart only seem to have guineas for like $30+/- when I've checked. Maybe it's seasonal? But I'm very interested in how this turns out! I love this site...
Also it's not just guinea pig pet owners that are critical about breeding and raising for meat. Check out the pigeon website.
After I get my quail and rabbits set up I'm moving back to aquaponics, going to try and get some pigeons, and maybe with some cuy in the future!

You could get away with obtaining them for cheaper or even for free off of Craigslist depending on how your local market is. I was in a hurry to get my breeding stock and still averaged about 15-16 dollars a pig which included critter cages to house all of them while I built outdoor tractors, water bottles, and crocks. If I had more time could have waited for even better deals.

 

[Bug n Flock]

Sorry, I guess I didn't mean your boar, he isn't roan. I mean the white and brown one with red eyes.

 

[Hardwarehank]

Speaking of feeding routines though, what's yours like? Mine get the grass and whatever else is growing plus alfalfa/grass hay if they want. Oats with molasses(the feed store advertised it as just oats then I find that they're oats with molasses, going with it), barley, and BOSS in the J feeders. They seem to just toss the BOSS and barley out looking for the oats but that's ok I suppose, they'll just sprout in the grass and they can come by and mow down the sprouts on the next go around.

For veggies I'll chop up some carrots(plus tops), chard, kale, collards, parsley, weeds(dandelion, lambs quarters, plantain, purslane), lettuce and sometimes bell peppers. Once I start drowning in tomatoes I'm sure they'll get plenty of tomatoes too. Today and the next couple of days will probably be mostly corn leaves/stalks/small cobs as my stalks are getting ready for harvest. Any suggestions you can make? Anything I might be missing or that you might do differently?

I'm thinking of getting some barley fodder going too to see how well they take to that if not for the warmer months at least for the winter.

 

[FrankieDoodle]

We have two guinea pigs, Cavy who we found in our neighbors yard, & Gus Gus who had been left at the vet for atleast six weeks. They had both been attacked by some kind of animal. It took out Cavys eye, & it got Gus Gus's back, but other than that they're fine. Now they have healed & are fine, if not a little jumpy.

This is Gus Gus

This is Cavy

 

[Hardwarehank]

Gus Gus is quite the looker. Being kept as just for pets?