TWENTY POUNDS?!?!?!? x.x
i've heard tops of 8lbs but not 20....wow...
btw some more links and things i've compiled...
i had never really thought much about guinea pigs until a few months ago. but i now have my beginning herd of lil pigs for meat animals. let me start this topic by posting links to info i have found on the topic already. next i will go on about what i am doing myself.
guinea pigs as meat thread from another forum
Guinea pigs as meat
guinea pigs as meat thread from *another* forum
Raising Guinea Pigs for Meat « The Real Know How
paragraph and short video on queensland couple who raise em for meat
Raising Guinea Pigs for Meat « The Real Know How
article on couple from previous links video and their gpigs as meat
Guinea pig and pigeon; the other 'other white meat' - ABC Sunshine & Cooloola Coasts Qld - Australian Broadcasting Corporation
"guinea pigs for meat production" published 1991
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.echoco...DB-0A0D-4DDE-8AB1-74D9D8C3EDD4/GuineaPigs.pdf
"guinea pig management manual" nov 2003
http://www.bensoninstitute.org/Publication/Manuals/guineapig.pdf
about guinea pig diet needs
Guinea Pigs: All About Them - DIET
high vitiman c foods list (because they cannot make their own vit c)
Guinea Pigs - Cutiecavies Guinea Pig Forum - Login
great nutrition chart even though its from a gpig pet "nutters" site (beware if you look around for the *breeding is evil* theme)
Guinea Lynx :: Nutrition Charts
article on cuy introduced in california in a petco and sold as regular gpigs (i will explain the difference of what i mean)
California's Giant Guinea Pigs and the Cuys Criollos Mejorados - Guinea Pig Today
guinea pigs versus cuy
guinea pigs is what most people would call them. though originally in south america where they were domesticated and are still raised for meat they are called cuy or cui cui. sounds like koo-ee, like the noises the animals make.
the guinea pigs you find in pet stores and kids pets today are descendants from some cuy that were found and brought to be showed around and for super rich people as pets.
Guinea pig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The common guinea pig was first domesticated as early as 5000 BC for food by tribes in the Andean region of South America (present-day the southern part of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia),[8] some thousands of years after the domestication of the South American camelids.[9] Statues dating from ca. 500 BC to 500 AD that depict guinea pigs have been unearthed in archaeological digs in Peru and Ecuador.[10] The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped animals and often depicted the guinea pig in their art.[11] From ca. 1200 AD to the Spanish conquest in 1532, selective breeding resulted in many varieties of domestic guinea pigs, which form the basis for some of the modern domestic breeds.[12] They continue to be a food source in the region; many households in the Andean highlands raise the animal, which subsists off the family's vegetable scraps.[13] Folklore traditions involving guinea pigs are numerous; they are exchanged as gifts, used in customary social and religious ceremonies, and frequently referenced in spoken metaphors.[14] They also play a role in traditional healing rituals by folk doctors, or curanderos, who use the animals to diagnose diseases such as jaundice, rheumatism, arthritis, and typhus.[15] They are rubbed against the bodies of the sick, and are seen as a supernatural medium.[16] Black guinea pigs are considered especially useful for diagnoses.[17] The animal also may be cut open and its entrails examined to determine whether the cure was effective.[18] These methods are widely accepted in many parts of the Andes, where Western medicine is either unavailable or distrusted.[19]
Spanish, Dutch, and English traders brought guinea pigs to Europe, where they quickly became popular as exotic pets among the upper classes and royalty, including Queen Elizabeth I.[8] The earliest known written account of the guinea pig dates from 1547, in a description of the animal from Santo Domingo; because cavies are not native to Hispaniola, it was earlier believed that the animal was likely introduced there by Spanish travelers.[1] However, based on more recent excavations on West Indian islands, it has become known that the animal must have been introduced by ceramic-making horticulturalists from South America to the Caribbean around 2500 BP,[20] and it was present in the Ostionoid period, for example, on Puerto Rico,[21] long before the advent of the Spaniards. The guinea pig was first described in the West in 1554 by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner.[22] Its binomial scientific name was first used by Erxleben in 1777; it is an amalgam of Pallas' generic designation (1766) and Linnaeus' specific conferral (175.[1]"
cuy are the light colored (i read that it is believed traditionally that the eating the dark ones is not good?? no idea on reasoning though. seem most all are white with orange/red/peach color.) and big bodied relatives. pet shop guinea pigs adult weight is 1-2lb with a few reachin up to 3lb though fairly rare. well with cuy they are meat animals and are bred as such, for size not color or hair style. so cuy adults are average 4lb though i'm reading up to 8lbs.
another difference in them being that guinea pigs usually live 5 to 7 years. the oldest i think i read was 13 years old, dont quote me on that one though... whereas cuy it seems live 2 to 2.5 years. but another thing to remember is that in cuy farms it goes that you should replace breeders after one year of breeding (start breeding at 4months+12 months=16 months) or after 6 litters.
cuy also i read tend to have ptylydactyly (spelling could be way off but bear with me here) which is having too many toes. meaning normally they have 4 toes on front feet and 3 toes on back feet, and with ptylydactyly they have more toes then that.
link with ptylydactyly info and pics
Guinea Lynx :: Guinea Pig Feet and Foot Problems
...here is a hypothetical breeding scenario. this is before i messaged you leon and was looking into cuy brought in from south america. i find very few guinea pigs around here and my 2lb boar is the largest i've come across. so i thought for meaty pigs bringing in the larger lines would be extremely needed for any kind of upbreeding size within a few years.
in this scenario i am going with 1 cuy sow and 3 pet type boars. this widens the genetic
pool of initial litters and would mean less likely to run into any inbred issues
from the breeding of high percentage litters later on. so this is more
sustainable long term.
this hypothetical plan is also just the breeding of the cuy sow over about a 2
year period. since cuy seem to live only about 2.5yrs, this plan would be last
litter at about the 2.5 yr old mark. so she would have 10 litters.
starting at 1/1/2013 and all initial animals (cuy sow, 3 pet type boars) are
breeding age and putting the next boar for breeding in with the sow a little
while before she births. taking advantage of the heat she will come into after
birthing. just about guaranteeing a next breeding. so the next breeding date is
the due date of the last litter. this is based from a 68 day gestation
(
Guinea Pig Pregnancy Calendar - Gestation Calculator - Guinea Pig Due Date Calculator | GestationCalculator.com)
yes this would be back to back breeding. but b2b breeding is the way cuy are
bred to handle so should be able to handle it with good feeding.
*(75+%) = more then 75% cuy, sorry i'm bad with math.
(DNC) = dang near cuy. very scientific, i know
1/1/2013
pet type boar A x cuy sow = 1 (50%)boar A, 2 (50%)sows A
3/10/13
pet type boar B x cuy sow = 1 (50%)boar B, 2 (50%)sows B
5/17/13
pet type boar C x cuy sow = 1 (50%)boar C, 2 (50%)sows C
7/24/13
(50%)boar A x cuy sow = 1 (75+%)boar A1, 2 (75+%)sows A1
9/30/13
(50%)boar B x cuy sow = 1 (75+%)boar B1, 2 (75+%)sows B1
12/7/13
(50%)boar C x cuy sow = 1 (75+%)boar C1, 2 (75+%)sows C1
2/13/14
best 50% boar x cuy sow = keep sows
4/22/14
(75+%)boar A1 x cuy sow = 1 (DNC)boarA1A, 2 (DNC)sowsA1A
6/29/14
(75+%)boar B1 x cuy sow = 1 (DNC)boarB1B, 2 (DNC)sowsB1B
9/5/14
(75+%)boar C1 x cuy sow = 1 (DNC)boarC1C, 2 (DNC)sowsC1C
11/12/14
there is alot of variables here though. firstly you might get litter of all sows
or all boars. you might lose a litter. you might lose your keeper percentage
boar. the cuy sow might not be bred back right after breeding. the cuy sow might
die earlier.
tons of variables. i just made this out with the *best* variables i could think
of for showing example of what i think would be best laid plans for a high
percentage herd.
from this outline of sorts there is a foundation for an extremely large herd
with what i think would be good genetic pool.
the 2 (50%)sowsA could be bred to the 50% boars B and C. then later to the 75+%
boars B and C. and so on.
if anything doesnt make sense just ask!
though i'm wayyyy behind your setup...
