Measures to Keep Female Foxes Litter Live

The little fox before weaning is called the young fox.

Before birth, the living conditions of young foxes in the maternal womb are quite stable and are not easily affected by external harmful factors. After birth, living conditions have changed greatly, from gas exchange, nutrition intake and waste removal through the placenta to breathing, feeding and excretion on their own. As the regulating function of the young fox is not perfect, the sudden change of environmental conditions can easily lead to disease and even death of the young fox. In order to improve the survival rate of young foxes, the following measures are put forward for reference.

1 prenatal preparation

Prepare and disinfect the delivery box and bedding grass 5-10 days before delivery (direct sunlight for several hours), and spread the bedding grass at the bottom of the box into a "pot bottom shape" that is high around and concave in the middle, so that the young foxes can be gathered together after birth. to prevent crawling around, not eating milk and freezing to death, starving to death.

2 female foxes give birth to pups

Female foxes that have reached the due date should always pay attention to observation. Female foxes have signs before giving birth, such as plucking, stopping eating, abnormal activities and so on. It is found that the above situation shows that the female fox is nearing labor. After the fetus is born, most female foxes can quickly peel off the fetal placenta and eat it, cut off the umbilical cord, and lick the mucus from the fetus. The length of delivery time varies with the number of babies and the physical quality of the female fox, which is generally 2-3 hours. Most female foxes can take good care of their young foxes under normal conditions without human management.

3Postpartum examination

Postpartum examination is one of the important measures to keep the baby alive. It is usually examined within 6-12 hours after delivery, and when the climate is mild. The main purpose of the examination is to see whether the maternal strength, litter size and lactation status of female foxes (to observe whether the foxes eat colostrum, the young foxes with colostrum have a black mouth, enlarged abdominal circumference and lie quietly in a pile), the health status of foxes (to observe whether there is umbilical cord entanglement or umbilical cord unbitten, placenta unpeeled and dead fetus, etc.) and heat preservation. If you find that the young fox is constantly screaming, dissatisfied with the abdomen and scattered all over the place, it means that he has not been fed and should be dealt with in a timely manner.

4 the function of colostrum

The milk produced by a female fox in the first 2 or 3 days is called colostrum. Colostrum plays a very important physiological role in the survival, growth and development of young foxes, because colostrum is very rich in immunoglobulin and albumin, as well as vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. It is an indispensable food for the growth and development of young foxes. In production, we must do everything possible to make every young fox eat colostrum, and artificial forced breastfeeding can be taken if necessary.

5 foster care or artificial feeding

The offspring of female foxes born to female foxes are called foster care.

5.1 Foster care is generally in the case of more than 10 foxes giving birth, no milk or insufficient milk after delivery, weak motherhood of female foxes, great differences in body size of foxes in the same litter, frightened foxes, or mother orphans are unable to take care of foxes, and so on, it is necessary to pass the foxes to other foxes to ensure the survival and health of the foxes.

When raising young foxes, we should pay attention to the docile temperament, large milk production and strong motherhood of female foxes; the birth period of female foxes An and B is close, preferably no more than 2-3 days; to find ways to let young foxes eat colostrum; the size of foxes raised in foster care is not much different from that of foxes born in the original nest.

In order to prevent the female fox from refusing foster care, we should first try to draw the female fox out of the production box, wipe the baby fox with the mat grass in the foster fox box or wipe the baby fox with the feces and urine of the foster fox, and then put it into the nest of the foster fox box; the foxes reserved for breeding should be marked to avoid pedigree confusion. After foster care, the breeders should not go away, but should stand at a distance to observe. If they find that the female foxes have abandoned their young, they should find another substitute for the female foxes. If you can not find a substitute female fox, you can also use breastfeeding cats, dogs, raccoons and other foster care.

5.2 artificial feeding young foxes that do not find a suitable foster mother fox should be artificially fed. Artificial feeding is difficult and the survival rate is very low. Generally use eyedrop bottles as baby bottles, use pen bags as pacifiers, use boiled milk or goat's milk to control the temperature at 38-42 ℃, and remember not to add sugar. Feed them five or six times a day. The key to the success of artificial feeding lies in whether you can eat fox colostrum; if you can't eat fox colostrum, you should also feed it to Milk Zhen (bovine colostrum) produced by Heilongjiang Wandashan Harbin Dairy Co., Ltd., which is of great help to keep alive.

6 heat preservation and heat prevention

At birth, the functions of the hypothalamus, anterior pituitary and adrenal cortex, which adapt to the external environment, have been quite perfect, but the cerebral cortex is underdeveloped. the reaction ability of pituitary and hypothalamus and the function of conduction structure necessary for hypothalamus are low. Therefore, the stress ability of regulating body temperature to adapt to the environment is poor, especially in the first few days after birth, the regulation of body temperature mainly depends on the physical effects of fur, muscle trembling, vertical hair movement and heap heating, but the young fox has sparse coat and little subcutaneous fat, and its ability of heat preservation and thermal insulation is very poor. Therefore, heat preservation and heat prevention for newborn foxes is not only a special nursing requirement for raising young foxes, but also one of the important measures to keep them alive and healthy.

When heat preservation, we should make sure that the bedding grass is sufficient, the nest shape is always "pot bottom shape", and there is no gap in the production box. Shade the sun when the temperature is high, and put the lid on the litter box to cool down. Be sure to provide adequate and clean drinking water.

7 timely supplementary feeding

At 20-30 days after birth, the milk yield of female foxes gradually decreased, while with the rapid increase of the growth and development rate of young foxes (see Table 1), the milk requirement increased, resulting in a contradiction between supply and demand. At this time, if there is no timely feeding to supplement the shortage of breast milk, it is easy to cause thinness or illness and death of young foxes.

Therefore, foxes should be trained to feed after they are born at the age of 2 weeks. The supplements should be fine, nutritious, palatable and easy to digest. General animal feed accounts for 30%, eggs and milk 25%, milk 25%, cereal feed 25%, vegetables 5% 10%, and vitamins and minerals are added to ensure the normal growth and development of young foxes. Supplementary feeding should be a small number of meals, flexible control, each with a supplement of 30g and 50g per day, and then gradually increase to ensure the healthy growth of foxes. The amount of replenishment is shown in Table 2.

Table 1 growth rate of suckling foxes

Born at the age of 12345678 weeks

Weight (g) 94.5220.2367.3581.5845.51100.51352.21592.21820.0

Absolute growth (2 / day) 17.9621.0130.637.7136.4335.9634.5732.26

Table 2 feeding amount of young foxes during lactation period g / day

After the age of 01010202030304040

The amount of supplementary feed is 0030450075100150.

8 Scientific weaning

The weaning time of young foxes should be determined according to the physique of young foxes and the lactation of female foxes. It is usually weaned 8 weeks after birth (55-60 days). There are several methods of weaning:

8.1 one-time weaning (decisive weaning) when the young fox reaches the weaning date, forcibly separate the young fox from the mother fox. The advantages of this method are simple, short weaning time, labor-saving and labor-saving; the disadvantage is that due to sudden weaning, large and small foxes are nervous and prone to stress reactions; especially young foxes, due to changes in their living environment, it is easy to cause indigestion.

8.2 weaning in batches (enhanced weaning) when the young fox reaches the weaning date, the young fox will be weaned first and then in batches according to the development of the young fox. The well-developed foxes are weaned first, and those with weak physique are weaned later. The advantage of this method is that it can take into account the different development of young foxes, appropriately prolong the lactation period of weak foxes, in order to promote growth and development; the disadvantage is that the weaning time is prolonged, which brings trouble to production management, and affects the physical strength recovery of female foxes.

8.3 gradual weaning (safe weaning) when the young fox reaches the weaning date a few days before the weaning date, the number of contact and lactation between the mother fox and the young fox is gradually reduced. The specific approach is to catch the female fox every day, put another cage, repeat several times, with the gradual extension of the other cage time, so that the young fox from less breast-feeding to non-lactation, in order to reduce the stress caused by weaning; at the same time, it is also good for the mother fox to return milk after weaning, which is a safer method. But this method is troublesome and laborious.