farm guinea pigs (meat cavy!)

[Bug n Flock]

Ahh, shoot! You asked me questions! Sorry about that, I have been crazy busy lately.

Managed to pawn the boys off on a member of my extended family. She was suuuuuuuper excited and was going to only take one and breed them as a meat project (she has 6 kids and feeds her family any way she can: chickens, rabbits, etc etc etc). She was going to trade me a flemish giant/silver fox cross for my rabbit project and we were both super excited. But then her 16 year old daughter and her friend got in an accident on some 4 wheelers and the daughter's friend had to go to the hospital for xrays (she is OK. Just has a badly bruised arm) and I figured she had bigger things to worry about than a critter trade. I left the boys at my aunt's farm for her though and she seemed happy thru text. Said she would give me a rabbit when I see her next but I'm not too stressed about it. Lol she is an awesome person and my cousin's cousin; family as far as I'm concerned. So I'll be going to the agricultural fair this weekend for a rabbit doe hopefully. And if there is nothing appealing there, my cousin has offered me a doe out of her flemmish doe when she breeds her(to a regional champ flemmie buck, exciting!).

I feed my pigs all the hay they want (I buy compressed bales from tsc, *muuuch* cheaper than pet shop hay), I give them manna pro rabbit pellets free fed sometimes and other times a measured amount, daily I give them veggies and or fruits from my supply. They love banana peels and kale! Pocket really likes tomatoes, Chili wont touch them, and Vladimir will go after them if he can see Pocket eating them. Orb and Milhouse (baby girls) don't seem interested in tomatoes yet. Cucumber is another favorite. They don't seem to like snap peas, blueberries, broccoli, summer squash. Lettuce is a hit, carrots and tops, beets and tops, turnip greens, apples... I like giving them a variety whenever possible. Being in the city I don't often give them fresh grass, but I'll sometimes not pay my lawn guys to come for a few weeks and then go out with scissors or a scythe or something and collect bags of "yard mix" as I call it. They love them some "yard mix". I also offer BOSS, which mine actually really seem to enjoy. Also offer safflower on occasion, and sometimes I'll even toss them a handful or two of chicken food, which they and my rabbits go crazy bananas for.

Have not offered many grains yet, plan to though.

 

[FrankieDoodle]

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

Thanks! Yeah, he is.

 

[Hardwarehank]

Ahh, shoot! You asked me questions! Sorry about that, I have been crazy busy lately.

Managed to pawn the boys off on a member of my extended family. She was suuuuuuuper excited and was going to only take one and breed them as a meat project (she has 6 kids and feeds her family any way she can: chickens, rabbits, etc etc etc). She was going to trade me a flemish giant/silver fox cross for my rabbit project and we were both super excited. But then her 16 year old daughter and her friend got in an accident on some 4 wheelers and the daughter's friend had to go to the hospital for xrays (she is OK. Just has a badly bruised arm) and I figured she had bigger things to worry about than a critter trade. I left the boys at my aunt's farm for her though and she seemed happy thru text. Said she would give me a rabbit when I see her next but I'm not too stressed about it. Lol she is an awesome person and my cousin's cousin; family as far as I'm concerned. So I'll be going to the agricultural fair this weekend for a rabbit doe hopefully. And if there is nothing appealing there, my cousin has offered me a doe out of her flemmish doe when she breeds her(to a regional champ flemmie buck, exciting!).

I feed my pigs all the hay they want (I buy compressed bales from tsc, *muuuch* cheaper than pet shop hay), I give them manna pro rabbit pellets free fed sometimes and other times a measured amount, daily I give them veggies and or fruits from my supply. They love banana peels and kale! Pocket really likes tomatoes, Chili wont touch them, and Vladimir will go after them if he can see Pocket eating them. Orb and Milhouse (baby girls) don't seem interested in tomatoes yet. Cucumber is another favorite. They don't seem to like snap peas, blueberries, broccoli, summer squash. Lettuce is a hit, carrots and tops, beets and tops, turnip greens, apples... I like giving them a variety whenever possible. Being in the city I don't often give them fresh grass, but I'll sometimes not pay my lawn guys to come for a few weeks and then go out with scissors or a scythe or something and collect bags of "yard mix" as I call it. They love them some "yard mix". I also offer BOSS, which mine actually really seem to enjoy. Also offer safflower on occasion, and sometimes I'll even toss them a handful or two of chicken food, which they and my rabbits go crazy bananas for.

Have not offered many grains yet, plan to though.

Sorry to hear about the accident but glad no one was too badly hurt. Good luck with your rabbit project. I'm thinking of starting a little rabbitry next year but first quail for the eggs and a little meat.

I'm thinking of contacting a local farmer for alfalfa/grass mix hay for about 4 dollars a bale. Figure 12 bales should see me through the winter to next spring. If you're feeding them pellets you shouldn't have to offer grains per se since the rabbit pellets are partly grain(most likely). I just feed the grains in place of pellet feed. I don't know what it is with my herds but not many are taking to tomatoes and bell peppers are hit and miss. Luckily they love their weeds that have decent amounts of vitamin c. I didn't know they could eat banana peels. One more thing for them to compost!

Some pictures taken after today's rainshowers to show how the roofs collect water. This was nothing compared to last week's storm where I was bailing gallons off each lid. Can't complain too much, they're doing their job keeping the pigs dry and holding up well enough to the weight.

And sort of a progress pic on the girls that are growing out(black and white is an adult). Starting to get closer to adult size. Hopefully they'll be the right size in September to get bred.

 

[CertifiedChaser]

So i have a few questions myself, how often do you breed a year? How old/big are they when you process them? What do you do for them in winter as you're in Michigan? I believe you said? I'll have to double check to make sure I got my facts straight but if so I imagine winters are pretty cold so do you move them inside? Lastly, what is your processing procedure like (do you pluck the fur, skin them, whatever else there is you could do)?
Thank you.

 

[Hardwarehank]

So i have a few questions myself, how often do you breed a year? How old/big are they when you process them? What do you do for them in winter as you're in Michigan? I believe you said? I'll have to double check to make sure I got my facts straight but if so I imagine winters are pretty cold so do you move them inside? Lastly, what is your processing procedure like (do you pluck the fur, skin them, whatever else there is you could do)?
Thank you.

I'll start by saying I haven't successfully bred any guinea pigs yet. Hopefully be seeing some babies soon if I have fertile breeders. That being said, their average gestation is 59-72 days. Allowing for about a month of rest from birth to mating you could expect about 4 litters a year average per sow.

I don't have a set size that I plan to process them at but will be selecting breeders based on size to get bigger and bigger guinea pigs. I'll process more likely after a set amount of time to make room for new growers. I estimate I'll end up processing at about 12 weeks or so when I have some to process.

I've been wanting to do this project for a number of years but the biggest thing holding me back was how to do the deed. I knew I wouldn't be able to dislocate their neck by hand and using something like a rabbit wringer wouldn't be much better(for me). Then I discovered the ballista(designed for rabbits) and knew that's how I would dispatch the guinea pigs when it came time to.

I plan to save the skin(for eating) so will be dipping the guinea pig in scalding water to loosen its fur then rub it off(typically how its done in South America) and then remove internal organs through the belly saving the heart, liver, and kidneys. The ones meant for my dog will just be dispatched and then frozen whole until fed.

I'll be bringing them in to the garage for the Minnesota winter. When that is I'm still trying to figure out. I wouldn't want to wait too long and then lose any of them. Planning to get some 4x8 OSB sheets and dividing it in two to house two herds per 4x8 space. Thinking of experimenting with deep litter and using styrofoam coolers for insulated living quarters. My garage is insulated and attached to the house and stays above freezing for most of the winter. On the coldest days I can turn on the heater in the garage as a last resort.

We'll see how it all goes. This is uncharted territory for me. Worst case scenario, the guinea pigs don't work out and their yard tractors get re-purposed for rabbit tractors.

 

[Zoomie]

I mostly just watch this thread but I'll weigh in here for a second, about when to butcher... it comes sooner than most growers realize. What you need to do is spend some time weighing your kits or whatever baby guinea pigs are called. At some point, the weight gain to feed ration gets wrong... in other words it takes more feed and they are not gaining any weight. THAT is when you should butcher, whether it's a cow or a cavy. If you wait after that point, it costs more money to feed them than you get out of converting them to food.

 

[Hardwarehank]

Well, summer's pretty much gone. If it was ever here to begin with. A little good news though. I'm pretty sure one of my sows is pregnant and judging by when I introduced her to Moose she should be popping any time now.

 

[Bug n Flock]

Whoo-hoo! Congrats! I'm 100% sure Pocket is pregnant again, and fairly heavily so. I'll be taking her out of the group pen this time before she has the pups, back-to-back pregnancy can't be easy for the gal, she deserves a break. My older sow may or may not be pregnant too, we will see. I hope she is! My boar is an American, and Pocket is also an American. Chili, though, is an aby. I sure hope she throws some cute little rosette covered babies for me.

The two girls from Pocket's first litter are in the group pen, so may be pregnant as well. I know, I know: inbreeding = bad. But when my special friend and I ducked out of town to catch the eclipse(one of the most amazing experiences in my life. We backpack camped in the mountainous back woods of Tennessee and caught totality on a mountaintop!), the safest way to make sure they all had food and water enough for the trip was to let them loose in the group pen with extra water bottles. /shrug. I'll be setting up a second group pen soon enough with an unrelated boar. Maybe more than one more group pen.... hehehe I have exciting news!

Sorry I have been so MIA! I ended up getting two new buns at the fair, a 2 year old NZ white doe and an 11 week old Silver Fox buck. The Doe is a MEAN thing. She was used to breed meat bunnies and lived out-doors without much human interaction I am assuming. I have named her Lucy........... Lucy Fur She has already met my boy Malice(Flemmie buck), and so is hopefully expecting a litter of buns in the next month.

The Silver Fox was raised by a 4-H'er and is suuuuuper friendly.

My special someone and I are looking at properties to start our farm on, and I am absolutely super duper excited! He is as taken as I am with farming and self sufficiency and just... like literally everything else. We are looking at a 100 acre lot with a creek and so so much woods. Prolly do goats and continue the current critter projects while we work to clear some land and build various structures and buildings.

Life is so good.

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

Hi,

I'm a small professional guinea pig breeder in Helsinki, Finland. I was reading this thread and some things came to mind.

There is very little accurate information that is easy to find on the internet right now about breeding guinea pigs. This is because of what amounts to packs of short-sighted, hobbyist-type enthusiasts who wanted someone and something to hate, and they chose guinea pig breeders as their target. They have the idea firmly planted in their heads that guinea pig breeding is akin to Satan and have banned talking about breeding on their internet resources. They take the time to write about every possible thing that can go wrong with a pregnancy and then demand that nobody breed, and pretend that this is the whole story. They are driven by some kind of self-righteous, fantasy agenda in which nobody should be allowed to ever purchase a young animal and everyone must find an animal at a shelter to adopt (the pet breeds would be extinct in 5 years of course if everyone actually did that). Oh, and pet stores that sell live animals are Satan's Spawn too, according to them.

Okay so anyway - now that we're past the background info on the situation, eh ..

The first thing that came to mind when I was reading the thread was:

There's a specific breed of guinea pigs that are raised for meat. They are called "Cuy" (I think pronounced COO-ee) from South America. They are different from the pet store ones that I think I'm seeing in some of your guy's pictures. Cuy are a real meat livestock animal. Some differences as I understand them are: they grow much faster/bigger, are capable of leaping and moving powerfully and fast (in ways that the pet breeds cannot), and their personalities are usually deep into the freakout - paranoid - scaredycat zone. From what I've read about them, you wouldn't be selling them as pets, certainly not to families with kids, they're not suitable.

IMO, if breeding for meat, the pet breeds are a waste of your time and feed in comparison. I've read that cuy are slaughtered at 8 months and they reach 6 pounds (2.7 kg). A pet breed animal at 8 months is going to be like, 850 - 900 grams or something. My biggest male, fully grown, is 1.2kg if he's not too fat.

You might consider homing out your pet breed stock to some pet owners and finding yourself some cuy to do this with. It might be tricky to source some within USA, but I see mentions of some of them showing up in the various guinea pig "rescues", so there must be some out there somewhere. Doing this with the pet breeds strikes me as one of those /oh totally wrong animal for the job/ things. (Tad creepy too, as those breeds are not that kind of livestock . These pets have been bred for generations to be pets with tame personalities and different kinds of fur and different colors and so-on. But cuy are the real meat livestock deal, they're the beef cattle of guinea pigs.)

Second thing was -

I have not researched the exact temperatures at which the people who raise cuy keep their animals, but with the pet breeds, they don't work in low-ish temperatures. I saw some pictures of outdoor pens, I think. Also saw that one of you is in Minnesota and planning to use a garage in the winter (and I remember something about it being cold in Minnesota in winter, heh). When I think of my pet breeding stock and temperatures below room temperature, the main things that comes to mind are: upper respiratory infections (the adults die from that) and DEFINITELY dead babies (you cannot have newborns being cold). Also, the picture of dead adults comes to mind. I've never tried to keep anything at low temperatures so I don't really know where that cutoff is. I do know that they sit there and shiver if I have to transport them in the cold.

I maintain the temperature in here between 73 - 78, and it's to the high side of that range if I'm concerned about the health of anything or there are going to be newborns.

I have read that the pet breeds also do not work in high temperatures, and that if the temperature is above 80F, you can get bad problems with pregnant females. Not just the longhaired ones either, their bodies just don't work well in hot temperatures. 85F supposedly kills them.

Third thing was -

From the dates on this thread, It looks like youall started in the spring/summer, when there is a lot of fresh grass available. Pregnant female guinea pigs require great nutrition to do well. When winter is here and that fresh grass is gone, you have to be prepared to provide some fresh veggie source.

Nutrition is a HUGE deal with breeding things things. I can't emphasize that enough.

With the pet breeds and I would assume with cuy as well: If you don't do their nutrition well enough, they'll have smaller, less-developed babies than they should (some of which will be so small that they cannot survive without expert care that you're not going to have the time to do, even if you know what to do). Feeding them some supplementary amount of "green" feed, as they call it, has the effect of making them eat more total foodstuff than they would if kept on only dry, and that's where this difference comes from.

But then. If you overfeed veggies that can promote gastric problems, it's possible for them to get a terrible and painful "bloat" situation.

It's also possible for them to develop weird metabolic problems and illnesses from too much food that isn't balanced in the right kinds of ways. You'll want to note that guinea pigs are exceptionally good at extracting calcium from their food, and if you feed them foods that have lots of calcium and not enough phosphorous in the ratio, you could be getting their health into trouble. For example - kale - if you look that up - very bad balance of calcium to phosphorous, there. Even if you try to do it right, you can end up with strange situations. Notable thing: males having painful bladder problems - practically pissing straight calcium - it can get strange with them, and it's not even completely understood why that can happen. High-oxalate foods are suspected to be bad and maybe contribute to these kinds of problems.

Also, if the nutrition is not excellent, the females can die due to a metabolic malfunction known as going "toxic". When one has gone 'toxic' it's pretty much too late - in practical terms you must make a point to prevent toxicity.

I don't know if anyone does or would do this with cuy, but one way that one can try to prevent toxicity is to put an amount of glucose (dextrose) in the drinking water from week 5 of the pregnancy through 1 week of nursing. I don't really know what the toxicity situation is like with cuy or if it makes more sense for someone with meat cuy to do this. All of my pregnant sows get supplemented water from around that time at a ratio of 1 tablespoon glucose powder per 200ml of water (powered glucose is usually sold in the context of people making alcoholic beverages). You have to replace the water much more frequently (at least 2x per day) or it'll ferment right in the bottles, and you have to clean the water bottles more frequently. Biofilm is not your friend, you can reach into the bottle with your finger and feel the slime buildup. You'll be able to note how much faster biofilm comes with glucose water vs. the regular water.

I have read that it's possible for unborn babies to die in the womb due to going toxic, but the situation was borderline for the mother, and she herself didn't go all the way. In those cases, the babies are born dead.

So, having written all that. It would be interesting to see how this could work out for youall. But it's easy for things to become a giant mess with the health condition of guinea pigs if they aren't done right. And yeah. Cuy. Not like.. ppl's tortoiseshell-and-whites. heh.

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

Oh, and how could I forget to mention.

Ringworm.

Guinea pigs and ringworm. Seriously. You have to ensure correct airflow in the pen areas, and keep things clean, and not allow them to sit in humidity.

There is something strange about guinea pigs and ringworm. Either they're really susceptible to it, or some of them just carry it, or both. The spores are just 'around' in the environment anyway. Google around and learn to recognize ringworm in guinea pigs. Especially if your animals tend to go outside, you will want to keep an eye out for it on an individual animal basis. It usually starts as a crusty acne-looking thing around their nose/upper lips/eyes/heads, but it can be seen elsewhere too.

Ringworm is extremely itchy. If you have experience with ringworm in guinea pigs, and you see a guinea pig scratching itself, it will make you pause and cringe a little. You might even check the animal for skin lesions right away, just because: ringworm. (They will scratch themselves into skin damage because it makes them itch so much.)

You may not be able to specifically get "Imaverol Vet" in USA, but that is generally what fixes ringworm. "Imaverol Vet" is mixed 1:50 with water. You may only be able to get less-concentrated versions of it, but in any case I would guess that all forms of Imaverol are prescription. Do not settle for a different treatment for ringworm because it's not prescription and therefore easier to get - you want the Imaverol. If you find ringworm starting up in your guinea pigs, hopefully you caught it early, before too many animals caught it.

The difficulty involved with eradicating ringworm from animal housing is all over Google, you'll be able to find it there.

I've never had a big breakout of it fortunately, but I've had to fix an animal that came in with it. Ugh.

And don't forget that you can catch it. It's horrible and can leave scars, and kids are more susceptible to being infected by it than adults.