Culture techniques of black guinea pigs

Black guinea pig

1. Morphological characteristics of black guinea pigs.

The black guinea pig has black ears, black eyes, black toes, glossy black fur, short body, round head, short neck, tailless, short ears and limbs, bright eyes, thin ear shell and bright red blood vessels, and split upper lip. The incisor is arched deep into the jaw, the chewing surface is sharp, and can grow for life. When the bite is incorrect, the incisor molars will overgrow. Black guinea pigs have well-developed masseter muscles. The forelimb has four toes, the hindlimb has three toes, each toe has protruding large toenails, the claws on the toes are short and sharp, do not grasp people, and are not good at climbing and jumping. The foot is like a dolphin, and the body length is 225~355mm. The coat is close to the surface of the body.

Second, the living habits of black guinea pigs

1. Active day and night

In nature, wild black guinea pigs are weak. for generations, they live in nature's deep mountain jungle, big trees, bamboo roots or bushes, living in holes. Because the wild black guinea pigs are small and weak, in order to avoid attacks by predators and birds such as leopards, wolves, foxes, eagles, and birds of prey, they often can only secretly look for food for a while, and can only hide for a while, and secretly come out to look for food when they are hungry. They have developed the habit of being active day and night after repeating for a long time.

2. Timidity and fear

Black guinea pigs are timid and like quiet, dry and clean environment. Very sensitive to changes in the external environment, or listen to abnormal sounds, vibrations or changes in the environment, or listen, panic, or jump randomly, or make a loud foot escape sound to "inform" its partner: frightened pregnant female black guinea pigs are most likely to miscarry; female black guinea pigs giving birth are frightened and difficult to give birth; some will kill newborn dolphins; lactating mothers refuse to breast-feed them when frightened. When frightened, black guinea pigs who are feeding often stop feeding. Being unaccustomed to regular handling and disturbance, handling, relocating or touching can significantly reduce the body weight of black guinea pigs within 24 to 48 hours, and then recover quickly after the condition is stable. Therefore, keeping the environment of the black guinea pig enclosure quiet is one of the problems worthy of attention in the work of raising black guinea pigs. In order to keep the environment quiet, the dolphin house should not be built with the machine. At ordinary times, the operation in the house should be light, do not make a loud noise, do not let the crowd watch, and do not let dogs, cats and other animals enter the black guinea pig farm.

3. Like drying

Most livestock and poultry like to live in a clean and dry environment, and black guinea pigs also have this habit. It eats and pulls too much, and the enclosure is not clean and wet because of drinking water, defecation and urination, which is not conducive to the growth of black guinea pigs. Although black guinea pigs have a strong ability to resist disease, it is not so easy to raise black guinea pigs without creating a clean and dry environment for black guinea pigs.

4. Like to live in groups

The gregarious characteristic is the instinctive behavior of black guinea pigs inherited from generation to generation, and many herbivores have this characteristic, and their social living environment has been developed for generations as a measure to defend against enemy damage. A male and multi-female population constitutes obvious social stability. It is characterized by group activities, rest or collective feeding, and lying close to each other. The young followed the adult to chase the female in estrus. The dominant black guinea pigs in the group bite the hair of other black guinea pigs. In the case of crowding or stress, it can also occur that one or more animals in the group are bitten off by other individuals, resulting in alopecia areata, resulting in skin trauma and dermatitis. If a new male is put in, there will be a fierce fight between the male rats, resulting in serious bites. After domestication, the old habit of Chinese black has not changed. Although modern cage, pond and box breeding are very safe, it is still difficult for black guinea pigs to adapt to this habit. In the process of feeding, we have made such an experiment in which a small number of black guinea pigs were raised separately in cages. the results showed that the reproduction and growth of separate cages and pairs were not as good as that of group feeding.

5. Be afraid of heat and cold

Black guinea pig is a fur animal, it lacks sweat glands, it is difficult to regulate body temperature by sweating, and the thick coat makes it difficult to distribute heat on the body surface, which is the main reason why black guinea pigs are afraid of heat. However, the thick coat makes the black guinea pig have a strong cold resistance. However, the young black guinea pigs or young black guinea pigs should pay attention to keep warm in winter. According to our breeding experience, in the structure of the dolphin house or in daily management, heat prevention is more important than cold prevention.

6. Like to gnaw on hard things

Black guinea pigs belong to mammalian rodents. Like rabbits, black guinea pigs have the habit of gnawing on hard objects, which is often called rodent behavior. The black guinea pig is a double-door tooth type, and the first pair of teeth in the incisors are called "permanent teeth". They exist at birth, do not change teeth later, and continue to grow. The black guinea pig must instinctively flatten it by gnawing on a hard object to make the upper and lower tooth surfaces match. This habit of black guinea pigs often causes damage to cages and utensils or other equipment. In order to avoid unnecessary losses, some defensive measures can be taken, such as putting branches and sticks with leaves in the cage, or hard objects such as rough hay to gnaw and grind their teeth; when building a house, in the frame and edge of the cage door, where it can be gnawed by black guinea pigs, necessary reinforcement measures should be taken. Of course, the construction of breeding ponds can reduce these defensive measures.