farm guinea pigs (meat cavy!)

[Hardwarehank]

Guinea pigs have an estrus every 15 days or so, and there is an estrus that starts very shortly after she gives birth (called the "post-partum estrus") that often leads to a pregnancy if it is utilized. Intensive breeding programs either have the boar breeding to the post-partum estrus or breeding to the sow at the estrus after the babies are off of her.

From what I've found so far, the whole question of "breeding breaks" isn't well studied in guinea pigs by scientists. I will guess this is because they don't use guinea pigs in that way. They need guinea pigs for what they're doing, so they do intensive breeding programs, and that's that. Same with the cuy situation in South America. Nobody who is doing this for real is jerking around with "breeding breaks".

One fact that they did determine was that if a sow has a "breeding break", the litter afterwards tends to be larger. Larger litters also have a proven relationship to increased stillbirths, and to the best of my understanding, larger litters are harder on the sow for both the pregnancy and the nursing. IMO this is not something to strive for.

For someone who's micromanaging the breeding schedule (you and me, as small producers, can do this), you would interrupt a sow's breeding schedule to allow for full recovery from any infirmity or medical situation or such. I am not sure a big producer would notice a sow that had something a bit off, but smaller producers like us have that advantage and can prevent sow catastrophes. IMO delaying for any questionable medical issue until it is fixed is ideal.

An example I can explain right now about a breeding break that is IMO valid:

I have a sow that demonstrated upper respiratory symptoms for about 30 seconds while she was nursing a litter. The animals are housed near me, and I heard it just once. When I walked over there, she stopped. I don't utilize the post-partum estrus so she was open at the time.

Upper respiratory infection is a big thing in these, you do NOT want one to be sitting around and then flare up during late pregnancy. Catastrophic.

Knowing this, when it was time to wean her babies, I took her to a vet (specialized small animal vet) (yes it was that big a deal, despite having only heard it once). The vet was able to hear that her right lung was slightly louder than her left (just slightly louder - it's a good vet, this was tricky to catch). The sow was put on oral antibiotics for 2 weeks, and the vet specified not to let the boar cover her for 2 more weeks after stopping the antibiotics (apparently that extra 2 weeks being related to the antibiotics specifically). So, this sow is getting a 1 month break for medical reasons.

There are other reasons of course that would be valid. I postponed a month once for cheilitis. Late-winter hay had tiny splinters in it and essentially injured a sow's mouth, and I didn't breed her until it was cleared up with the help of anti-fungal cream (painful mouth affects food intake negatively, I could see this in her weight when I weighed daily. Them being able to eat and get their full nutrition is important).

If there is no medical reason, and everything looks perfect, I haven't seen a reason specified in any of the quality vet stuff I've read to delay for the sheer heck of it.

See if this link works:

https://books.google.fi/books?id=Dc...fi&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

If the link works, scroll to page 9, you want to read pages 9 and 10 for these details. If that link does not work, the book's name is "The Biology of the Guinea Pig" by Joseph E. Wagner, the first part of the book is visible in Google Books.

A little bit of this book is not perfect, for example in the nutrition section, it suggests kale as a valuable green feed. I have a very good small animal specialist suggesting not to use kale. Also, it suggests vitamins going directly in the water, this is maybe not as clear-cut as this book suggests. But aside from a few little things, this book is golden as a source for the kind of information you're looking for.

What's in this book (and other veterinary textbooks like it) supersedes EVERYTHING you will find on hobbyist web sites. Hobbyists and even some animal welfare organizations are making up their own "facts" about guinea pigs, from the cage space required, to the nature of sex determination within litters, to their nutrition, to when to start a new sow in breeding, to "breeding breaks", the list goes on and on. If you don't see something discussed or recommended in the veterinary material, but hobbyists are spewing it, beware of pseudo-science.

Thanks for your take on the necessity of a breeding break between litters. Am I correct in assuming that's how you manage your stock(with exception to medical issues, etc.)? I plan to forgo them mostly because it will simplify my management and am fairly certain that my nutrition regiment is up to the task. Time will tell...

Regarding the small animal specialists suggestion not to use kale as a feed. Did they provide reasoning for their recommendation?

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

Thanks for your take on the necessity of a breeding break between litters. Am I correct in assuming that's how you manage your stock(with exception to medical issues, etc.)? I plan to forgo them mostly because it will simplify my management and am fairly certain that my nutrition regiment is up to the task. Time will tell...

Regarding the small animal specialists suggestion not to use kale as a feed. Did they provide reasoning for their recommendation?

The conversation went something like this:

me: "Is kale really a good food for this? The calcium to phosphorus balance is way off."
him: "It's true that kale is easy to get but we don't recommend kale."

I don't have more specifics than that, I'd have to ask for details.

I personally wean babies when they reach around 200-220 grams (this takes longer with some sows and litters than others), and if I like what I see in the sow after that, the boar covers her at the next available estrus. I have piles of reasons NOT use the post-partum estrus that outweigh any small advantage of a 2 or 4 week boost on a litter's timing. Things can go wrong while nursing, such as:

- Hypocalcemia like 5+ days or so in. This is massive calcium depletion in the sow, it causes progressive paralysis in the rear end and she feels bad and stops eating. If you catch it in time and realize what's happening, you can pull the babies off and rehabilitate the sow (liquid feeding) and over a period of days/weeks her health comes back. But if you're too slow to get it fast and her health goes nuclear, either the sow has to see a vet for a chance of survival or you find her too far gone for anything. It wouldn't make sense to have developing babies inside of her during an episode of hypocalcemia. If a sow gets that, you may have some decisions to make as to her breeding future if there's something about the sow that you think might predispose her to it (like maybe the sow is small, presumption on my part for a not-strictly-nutritional reason).

- Anything upper respiratory that happens to pop up, also noting that some antibiotics cause problems (mess up fetuses?) if the sow is pregnant.

- Bad behavior with the babies, in particular if it's not her first litter. Behavior such as: kicking her feet so the babies cannot learn to nurse and/or moving away from them when they try to nurse, or being evil and biting them while they are still of nursing age. I want the option to change my mind about using a sow that is proving to be a bad mother. I retired 2 so far this year for that.

- I've read that some sows go toxic while nursing. That has never happened to me (but I use glucose-treated water which may help prevent it). I bet that some of those cases start as hypocalcemia and the owner doesn't catch it fast enough. I don't think it would make sense to have babies in a toxic mother, either for her health or for the babies' possible development and survival.

So yeah compared to all that, I don't care about an extra 2 or 4 week wait. Good mother guinea pigs don't grow on trees, especially not the ones I need (teddies). I need to take care of what I have, even outside of the ethics considerations.

 

[CertifiedChaser]

The conversation went something like this:

me: "Is kale really a good food for this? The calcium to phosphorus balance is way off."
him: "It's true that kale is easy to get but we don't recommend kale."

I don't have more specifics than that, I'd have to ask for details.

I personally wean babies when they reach around 200-220 grams (this takes longer with some sows and litters than others), and if I like what I see in the sow after that, the boar covers her at the next available estrus. I have piles of reasons NOT use the post-partum estrus that outweigh any small advantage of a 2 or 4 week boost on a litter's timing. Things can go wrong while nursing, such as:

- Hypocalcemia like 5+ days or so in. This is massive calcium depletion in the sow, it causes progressive paralysis in the rear end and she feels bad and stops eating. If you catch it in time and realize what's happening, you can pull the babies off and rehabilitate the sow (liquid feeding) and over a period of days/weeks her health comes back. But if you're too slow to get it fast and her health goes nuclear, either the sow has to see a vet for a chance of survival or you find her too far gone for anything. It wouldn't make sense to have developing babies inside of her during an episode of hypocalcemia. If a sow gets that, you may have some decisions to make as to her breeding future if there's something about the sow that you think might predispose her to it (like maybe the sow is small, presumption on my part for a not-strictly-nutritional reason).

- Anything upper respiratory that happens to pop up, also noting that some antibiotics cause problems (mess up fetuses?) if the sow is pregnant.

- Bad behavior with the babies, in particular if it's not her first litter. Behavior such as: kicking her feet so the babies cannot learn to nurse and/or moving away from them when they try to nurse, or being evil and biting them while they are still of nursing age. I want the option to change my mind about using a sow that is proving to be a bad mother. I retired 2 so far this year for that.

- I've read that some sows go toxic while nursing. That has never happened to me (but I use glucose-treated water which may help prevent it). I bet that some of those cases start as hypocalcemia and the owner doesn't catch it fast enough. I don't think it would make sense to have babies in a toxic mother, either for her health or for the babies' possible development and survival.

So yeah compared to all that, I don't care about an extra 2 or 4 week wait. Good mother guinea pigs don't grow on trees, especially not the ones I need (teddies). I need to take care of what I have, even outside of the ethics considerations.

Was wondering about the health of the pigs being bred immediately afterwards. I feel everything needs a break after giving birth but it started to sound like a good idea till you mentioned calcium deficiencies. Maybe this could be countered with a higher calcium diet for the sows before and after pregnancies? Maybe during even?

Note: I'm Not looking for intensive breeding but if I could keep a few sows with a boar in the same space for a bit that'd work out well for me.

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

If you keep sows and a boar together, you get continuous babies, no choice about that

It's intuitive for humans, I think, to have the expectation that everything needs a break after having babies. It's important to keep in mind that sometimes animals can have significantly different biology than what a person would identify with.

Guinea pigs were domesticated as far back as like 5000 - 9000 years ago. At no point in that time were they restricted from breeding whenever they felt the urge. All that time they lived indoors, in a back room in ppl's houses, spending their time gobbling food and making babies. It's not implausible that messing with that by forcing breaks on their reproduction could mean that their biology malfunctions instead of being benefited.

It would take a genuine quality study to get the whole answer on it. The one I found mentioning breaks in breeding just said that forcing a wait on them resulted in larger litters (not ideal IMO considering the statistics about large litters).

<speculation> As far as I know, maybe long forced breaks like the ones hobbyists are doing cause a sow to have lower fitness for breeding due to obesity getting started, plus their reproductive strength/toughness is decreased due to the disuse. That's on top of other possible biological factors that I would have no idea about. </speculation>

In the absence of a definitive study, I don't trust that a breeding break being forced upon an animal that has been managed without one for thousands of years is a good idea for the animal's general or reproductive health.

On nutrition and calcium, it's definitely a big deal and yes, sows are intentionally kept on food with decent calcium during the pregnancy and nursing. All talk of breeding guinea pigs, questions about breeding breaks, etc, is null and void if the nutrition isn't there. No nutrition = no cavy.

 

[CertifiedChaser]

If you keep sows and a boar together, you get continuous babies, no choice about that

It's intuitive for humans, I think, to have the expectation that everything needs a break after having babies. It's important to keep in mind that sometimes animals can have significantly different biology than what a person would identify with.

Guinea pigs were domesticated as far back as like 5000 - 9000 years ago. At no point in that time were they restricted from breeding whenever they felt the urge. All that time they lived indoors, in a back room in ppl's houses, spending their time gobbling food and making babies. It's not implausible that messing with that by forcing breaks on their reproduction could mean that their biology malfunctions instead of being benefited.

It would take a genuine quality study to get the whole answer on it. The one I found mentioning breaks in breeding just said that forcing a wait on them resulted in larger litters (not ideal IMO considering the statistics about large litters).

<speculation> As far as I know, maybe long forced breaks like the ones hobbyists are doing cause a sow to have lower fitness for breeding due to obesity getting started, plus their reproductive strength/toughness is decreased due to the disuse. That's on top of other possible biological factors that I would have no idea about. </speculation>

In the absence of a definitive study, I don't trust that a breeding break being forced upon an animal that has been managed without one for thousands of years is a good idea for the animal's general or reproductive health.

On nutrition and calcium, it's definitely a big deal and yes, sows are intentionally kept on food with decent calcium during the pregnancy and nursing. All talk of breeding guinea pigs, questions about breeding breaks, etc, is null and void if the nutrition isn't there. No nutrition = no cavy.

Thanks for the info! Definitely encourages me more towards this. Will definitely be doing more research into this in the coming months.

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

Oh, there's something I should clarify about what I mentioned involving individual housing for guinea pigs that are about to have their babies. It's intentionally in the same room as the usual pen, and there's always a neighbor right next to them, on the other side of an unmoveable hardware cloth wall. If I don't have 2 sows ready to have their babies at about the same time, I'll move the boar out of the big pen to be the company for the sow (I pull him out when she goes into postpartum estrus tho, males get bitey and noisy on the hardware cloth when that happens).

It's not good to move pregnant sows to where they cannot see another guinea pig, or to a totally unfamiliar room. I'm reading that they can drink less water than what they should and so-on if that's done.

Pic below is with both cage doors open (the Ferplast 120 cm with the double doors in the front). Button on the left with her new babies (they popped on Oct. 4, litter of 3, 67-day pregnancy). Boss on the right, on day 61 of a pregnancy.

Boss is a big-ish, strange, silver "chinchilla" type agouti (double gene for agouti, if I understand how this works, not finding great info on all that tbh). When she was only 2 days old she was trying to act like an adult. Never seen anything like it. She's socially good in a group, interestingly. With as weird as she was, I didn't know what to expect.

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

Oh btw I happened to find this while digging into what various sources say about humidity in these:

http://www.animalethics.org.au/__da...using-guinea-pigs-scientific-institutions.pdf

It has interesting stuff I'd read from various sources, putting them into one place. All verified stuff, no pseudo-science. Like:

"Pregnant females that are subject to an unstable social environment in
the form of frequent introduction of new females to the group and
removal of familiar animals (creating constant social instability in the
colony), produce female offspring with higher levels of testosterone,
more masculine behaviour and higher adrenal gland weights than the
female offspring of dams from a more stable social environment.
Such permanent physiological changes in the animals may affect the
outcomes of some types of experimental work. Consequently, the
availability of reliable information on the housing environment and
husbandry of the animals may be an important consideration for
investigators when sourcing guinea pigs for particular research
projects.

Males that are reared with one female do not learn how to deal with
agonistic behaviour in a colony situation and if exposed to other males
in the presence of females, high levels of aggressive behaviour are
often displayed."

 

[CertifiedChaser]

So another question for those who are bringing their pigs inside for winter months. What's your cage setup? I'm not wanting to clean cages a lot which is why I went with rabbits to begin with so if you're bringing them in are you allowing their droppings to fall into a tray like most kennels and cages come with or will you fill it with shavings and have to clean it a few times a month/week? Not sure how messy these little buggers can be. Or are you lining their pens/cages with straw and keeping them out through winter like rabbits? Down in Oklahoma lately we haven't had much of a "winter" these past couple years so I'm also debating keeping them out like the rabbits.

 

[CertifiedChaser]

Oh, there's something I should clarify about what I mentioned involving individual housing for guinea pigs that are about to have their babies. It's intentionally in the same room as the usual pen, and there's always a neighbor right next to them, on the other side of an unmoveable hardware cloth wall. If I don't have 2 sows ready to have their babies at about the same time, I'll move the boar out of the big pen to be the company for the sow (I pull him out when she goes into postpartum estrus tho, males get bitey and noisy on the hardware cloth when that happens).

It's not good to move pregnant sows to where they cannot see another guinea pig, or to a totally unfamiliar room. I'm reading that they can drink less water than what they should and so-on if that's done.

Pic below is with both cage doors open (the Ferplast 120 cm with the double doors in the front). Button on the left with her new babies (they popped on Oct. 4, litter of 3, 67-day pregnancy). Boss on the right, on day 61 of a pregnancy.

Boss is a big-ish, strange, silver "chinchilla" type agouti (double gene for agouti, if I understand how this works, not finding great info on all that tbh). When she was only 2 days old she was trying to act like an adult. Never seen anything like it. She's socially good in a group, interestingly. With as weird as she was, I didn't know what to expect.

View attachment 1153037

That chinchilla one looks like a pretty guinea. I've only ever really seen the calico looking ones so it's nice to see they can vary so much with their colors.

 

[Fuzzy Torpedoes]

I'm not wanting to clean cages a lot

Can show what I'm doing for my indoor housing. Minimizing poop work is definitely a priority. It's possible there's a more efficient way, this is just what I came up with.

With what I am doing, I end up "straightening" cages and pens say, every 4th day or so. Maybe more often if it looks like it needs it. It depends on the cage's size and relative to size, how many animals are pooping and peeing in it, and so on.

Guinea pigs will demonstrate preferences on where they poop and pee in their pen if the environment is designed to support their natural bathroom habits. What I'm doing to minimize the amount of cleaning work I have to do is setting up the the cages with areas that they will naturally use as a bathroom, and making those areas able to be cleaned out quickly, without needing to reset the pen very often.

They like to poop and pee along tall walls and under things and in corners. So, my big pens have the floors that are next to tall, solid walls and including corners set up as a litterbox zone that is straightforward to clear out and replace the bedding in.

The pen is constructed of wood. Above that, a relatively permanent plastic cover that runs partway up the walls is cut and installed. Above that is one layer of towel material. Then sitting above that is the portion of the floor that the guinea pigs touch. There is a piece of thin fleece blanket that has deliberately been laundered/machine-dried at too high a temperature and generally lets liquid pass through it (the older it gets the better it gets at this). That fleece is all the way across the floor and partway up the walls. On top of that, there is a plastic liner - one piece - that is cut to the exact right shape that goes along the back and sides of the pen. Then, small-diameter circular wooden dowels are taped into place to create that whole back and side area as the litterbox area. You want small diameter dowels, like 1cm or something, because guinea pigs have short legs and you want to minimize the chance/damage from them smacking their feet into the dowels. You want the circular ones, not square.

All of this stuff is secured with a high quality clear packing tape sort of tape.

The point of all that trouble is that you don't have to reset the cage for a long time. You just scoop out the litterbox areas. The purpose of the towels is to help absorb the pee when they do decide to just pee outside the litterbox area for some reason.

When the cage needs to be completely reset because the fleece and the towels underneath are just too nasty and/or they tore up the plastic litterbox liner in spots and you want to replace it, it is a significant amount of work.

Having said that, the point is that you don't need to reset often. If you have the design matching what they want to do, they won't pee outside of the litterbox area very often. The pee is a bigger deal than the poop, although you can't let the poop just pile up, it's not good for their health and skin/feet to have anything nasty pile up.

Some pics:

Above is a view of a pen before being straightened.

Above is a view when I just finished removing all the nasty. I removed the 2 lowest ranking animals before starting so things would stay calm as I did the work. They tend to crowd together when I'm doing this and they can get all pissy if the wrong combination of animals gets bunched up like that.

Above is the pen with the pellets replaced and the animals put back in. You don't want a dense layer of pellets because they expand when they get wet and then tons of them spill out of the litterbox and everything gets stupid.

Note the partially-visible empty bowl to the bottom right. There is a water bottle mounted above that bowl. Guinea pigs can be messy drinkers and it's best to put a heavy bowl under the bottle + keep the water bottle in the litterbox area (both things). Some make a bigger mess than others but all it takes is one messy drinker to turn the pellets under the bottle to mush or soak whatever is under there.

It's possible to scrub down the plastic area with a weak bleach solution if you think it's best, but you'll want to remove all the animals while you are doing that, because fumes.

Some of my cages at this time are the more typical pet type. They are done a bit like the above, but in miniature.

Just finished cleaning up the nasty in pic above. The "ends" of the cage are set as litterbox areas. This cage has no dowels because it's being used for recuperation of a sick guinea pig + a breeding cage (they run around while breeding and anything that can obstruct their feet while they are running is bad). With this cage there is no need for the permanent-ish layer of plastic at the very bottom because it is a plastic container, not a wood pen.

Above is Wilbur and Mousey in the newly straightened cage. This cage has no little house area or toys or such because those objects are in the way for breeding animals. When using a cage that should not utilize little housing areas directly in the cage for some reason, you can drape a towel over one side of the cage, thereby creating an enclosed area without having an obstruction within the cage. This cage in essence has 2 places for them to feel like they can be "in" something - directly under that hay rack to the top right. and the left 1/3rd gets towel-covered.

The bowls and such are in the middle, not on the sides, because guinea pigs perceive the sides of areas, like next to walls, to be travel areas. So, you want the sides to be clear of obstructions such as food bowls and toys that do not allow direct passage through.

I got the plastic sheeting at a hardware store. It comes in omg-huge rolls that are so big that the sheets are folded in 2 as they are wrapped onto the spindle. The permanent layer on the bottom of the big pen uses it folded as it came, essentially 2 layers. There were 2 kinds of plastic available, one that was supposedly resistant to steam and one not. I got the steam resistant one.

You may have seen pictures of guinea pigs housed on hardware cloth flooring. Some of the pictures of this I have seen are from cuy being kept in South America, ie: not USA or UK. Assuming you are living in USA or UK, you do not want to do your animals like that for 2 reasons.

Reason 1:

Paragraph below is quoted from book The Biology of the Guinea Pig, bottom of page 7 into page 8:

Several articles, particularly in the British literature, describe the successful use of wire floor cages in guinea pig breeding colonies. Therefore a room of wire-bottom cages was designed and installed in the Fort Detrick breeding colony to test the desirability of wire floor cages verses solid floor cages. Two hundred females were maintained in this room for 3 years of testing. From almost every aspect, the use of wire-bottom cages in this breeding colony was unsatisfactory. The production rate was 22% below that of the colony on solid-bottom cages and the young weighed 25% less at weaning. Bacterial pneumonia was the principle cause of a higher mortality rate among both adults and offspring. Other guinea pigs had to be eliminated because of emaciation and debility. The wire mesh floor was essentially devoid of sharp projections yet many animals had to be culled because of pododermatitis. Hairlessness increased significantly in this colony, and guinea pigs turned a dirty rust color on their ventral surfaces. Many young were caught in the wire mesh, suffered fractured legs, and had to be destroyed.​

They ultimately concluded that wire cages using really small wire mesh may have advantages for short-term stuff, but it's no good for long-term housing such as breeding colonies.

Reason 2:

As a guinea pig breeder, there are piles of people (in particular in USA and UK) who look down upon you or even hate you. They will use the derogatory term "backyard breeder" to describe you. If they are aware that you are breeding guinea pigs (especially high-ish volume) and can identify you, plus you're not one of their purebred-breeder dandy friends, they will report you to your local animal welfare authority for abusing animals.

It doesn't matter if you are not abusing animals. It doesn't matter that your husbandry may outclass theirs. They won't try to verify anything themselves. They will report you because they can; because breeding guinea pigs is evil and they dislike/hate you that much.

After they report you, the local animal welfare authority people will show up at your door unannounced, wanting to see your animals. The people who show up may already be biased against you. There was a complaint about you, after all. They may very well believe the anti-guinea-pig-breeder hatred pseudo-science spew that is floating around the internet right now. They may have already labeled you as a simpleton "backyard breeder" who should probably give up animals and walk away in shame and go repair rusted cars on your lawn instead.

If they find your guinea pigs in wire floor cages, they might take action against you, such as maybe taking your animals.

Considering the description from the study above, it's hard to argue that wire floors represent good care. They sound like the lazy way to go, demonstrating the minimal possible regard for the animals' comfort, health, and safety. We don't live in third-world countries and we don't need to go with wire floor cages.