Porcupines are easy to raise, have few diseases, and require simple care and feeding.
Raising porcupines is much easier than raising cattle and poultry such as buffaloes, cows, chickens, and ducks. After growing up, they are sold for breeding and meat with a stable source of income. Let’s find out the porcupine raising techniques of experienced farmers.
1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF PORCUPINES
They are very family animals. Males only accept to live with the offspring they have born. Female porcupines that are pregnant with another male, when mated with a new male, will have their offspring bitten to death by this male.
However, in the next litter, the male one, female one and the litter live together very harmoniously. The baby one are born and develop very well.
During the process of building the barn, the barns next to each other need to be reinforced with iron mesh so as to avoid the situation where the young animals put their legs into the neighboring barn and get bitten.
Porcupines are wild animals so their basic resistance is very good.
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2. WHAT DO THEY EAT?
The cost of feeding porcupines is only ¼ of that of raising pigs or chickens. Porcupines are omnivorous animals, so their food is also very rich. These include insects, roots, leaves, sprouts, rice, corn, beans, vegetables, etc.
The foods that porcupines like best are: pumpkin, soybeans, papaya, sweet potatoes, potatoes, peanuts, sugarcane, corn kernels, cassava, banana trees, bananas, corn, figs, taro, guava, rice bran, elephant grass, water spinach and sweet potato leaves.
Normally each one will eat about 2kg of food per day. When they reproduce, the amount of food needs to be increased.
The water tray needs to be filled with a moderate amount of water, avoid pouring too much. Change the water twice a day to ensure the best health for the porcupines. The cage and water tray need to be cleaned thoroughly.
3. TECHNICAL NOTES ON BREEDING PORCUPINES
For porcupines raised for breeding, you should not fatten them. Reducing the amount of food to ensure that they gains about 8 ounces per month is best. Porcupines are pregnant for a period of 90-95 days. During this time, you should separate them from the male one so that the pregnant female can develop better and reproduce more easily.
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A porcupines from birth, raised for about 3 months will be separated, paired with another porcupines and let live together. 1 male can pair with 2-3 females to achieve better reproductive efficiency.
However, inbreeding should be avoided. Because the generation of inbreeding ones will be susceptible to disease and death at birth, have many defects, grow slowly, and have poor reproductive ability. To avoid inbreeding, it is necessary to mark and record information of each breeding.
4. POTENTIAL FROM RAISING PORCUPINES
Nowadays, dishes made from porcupine meat are also popular. In addition, porcupine is also a valuable medicine with many uses. The stomach is a valuable medicinal material used to soak in medicinal wine to treat stomach pain, stimulate appetite and digestion. The fur is used as jewelry, to treat otitis media. The bile is used to treat eye pain, as a massage medicine for trauma. The meat, large intestine, and liver are used to treat heat-wind diseases.
Output is often insufficient due to high market demand. Traders often buy from farmers and resell to large restaurants.
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5. NOTES WHEN RAISING LIVESTOCK FOR BUSINESS
Porcupines are wild animals and require state supervision and management during commercial operations. Therefore, you need to register for porcupine farming with the authorities in accordance with the law.
With these experiences and techniques of raising porcupines, it will help new breeders to somewhat define the method of raising. Although the breeding technique is not difficult, the food source can be utilized to save costs. However, it is also necessary to clearly understand the characteristics of porcupines to be flexible in raising them, so that the herd can develop well and be healthy.