farm guinea pigs (meat cavy!)

[The Moonshiner]

We have some guinea pigs.
NO plans on eating any though.
I'm gonna follow this thread just to see if any of you really do end up eating them. I've heard of it but never knew anyone that actually have.

 

[Bug n Flock]

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?

And because why not, here are some photos.

What a strange lookin' pig! (is a patchwork hairless rat, I am under strict orders to post one of these pics on a GP forum with the text "My pet had babies, and I think there is something wrong with one?" but I haven't yet, lol)

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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]

I was reading up on this last night (thank you so much for the information, @Fuzzy Torpedoes, really appreciate the learning opportunity) and it's true. Here is an article I read last night, with helpful photos: http://www.guineapigtoday.com/2012/06/28/californias-giant-guinea-pigs-cuys-criollos-mejorados/ Pretty astonishing and an amazing achievement in breeding. I can also see why the rescues are having a hard problem: these guys are livestock, not pets, and were not selected for being friendly to humans but for other traits. No wonder people are having a hard time turning them into pets. It would be like taking my neighbor's cattle off the mountain and trying to turn one into a back-yard pet. That would not go well. Same with the cuy, I would think.

Yes, you got it. And the reverse of that, once you understand which animals are which, is like, someone wants to raise field-dwelling hooved animals for meat production, and picks... Shetland ponies. Now if the people didn't know cattle existed, you don't blame them, and the overall concept isn't horrible, but at the same time you are like, no wait there is another way! Not the ponies! Send those to some kids or something and get some cattle. Hehe.

 

[Bug n Flock]

lots of good info

Yes, I agree it is somewhat silly to raise cavy and not cuy, but I have actually been semi actively looking for cuy in my area for well over a decade. If they are here, I have yet to find them. And, shrug, bantam meat is better than no chicken meat at all. Only, with guinea pigs and not chickens if that makes sense lol.

I got an unrelated boar today. Sold a few rats so happened to have cash in my pocket while at a pet shop(danger zone!) and this cute little goopy-eyed crested was being taken to the back room to be "treated"(half of pet shops will tell you this, but the animals go to the back to die. I have worked at enough pet shops to know this firsthand). I bought him. So after some TLC, he will be my second boar. Wh00t wh00t! (In the photo the goopy eye is the one in shadow) No clicking breathing or any other symptoms, so hopefully he will come around quickly under *actual* treatment.

Think I may call the little booger-eyed booger "Flash". He's got super cute markings as well as that super cute crest.

 

[Bug n Flock]

Taken first thing this morning before cleaning the eye or applying ointment. Fur grease is from the ointment. After two days of treatment, marked improvement. Way less goop, swelling is down, crust is less, holding eye open wider, excessive flinching behavior gone, seems more active. The activity level change could be misleading due to transport stress, though. Very tolerant of handling and treatment of his eye. Very nice pig, do not regret my decision to buy him.

Also just took in three new rats from someone on craigslist. The rats are sneezing(probably myco), and one has interesting behavior which could be a brain tumor, ear infection, or that schizophrenia-like condition I have been studying... don't remember if it was in this thread that I was talking about it, but shrug. Cute little rats, though.

 

[Bug n Flock]

Today's update on the pig. Same story. First thing in am photo before cleaning or treating. Seems improved from yesterday even, what do you guys think?

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

The eye looks decent to me. I think maybe it looks less swollen from yesterday but the pictures are taken at different distances from his face so, yeah.

What can look really freaky with these is when they get cornea damage. With supportive treatment and if it's not like seriously catastrophic damage, they can heal up well from that. But the eyes are not bulletproof of course, and with the worst damage they can lose the eye like anything else.