Own business: breeding nutria

* The calculations use average data for the World 500 000 ₽

Minimum starting capital

60%

Profitability

from 6 months

Payback

640 ₽

The cost of nutria skins (for 1 unit)

One of the most affordable types of small business in the field of agriculture is a family farm where you can breed nutria, mink, muskrat, arctic foxes, raccoon dogs, etc. The most suitable and affordable for a novice breeder is growing nutria.

These animals do not require complicated care and are not picky in feeding (eating hay, grain, vegetables, apples, reeds and food waste), unpretentious, versatile (they give valuable dietary meat that is not inferior in quality to rabbit meat, and demanded skins), quite prolific, resistant to various diseases. A large adult male nutria can reach a length of 60-70 cm, and by weight - 12-15 kg. Females weigh, as a rule, 20% less than males. Nutria, both in appearance and in habits, is similar to a beaver (it is even called a swamp beaver). She lives in water and on land, loves to dive, has powerful incisors that are constantly growing and need grinding.

Breeding nutria at home is a relatively new area of ​​activity for domestic livestock breeders. However, it is becoming increasingly popular, primarily because of the high profitability of this type of business. It is noteworthy that the state offers special, favorable conditions for nutrient breeders, encouraging the breeding of these animals. Among the ways of state support for this market segment are raising the purchase prices for skins, exempting farms that are breeding nutria from paying taxes on the sale of skins (but only on condition that they are sold to procurement organizations) and meat on the market.

The only difficulty associated with the maintenance of nutria is the need to equip a special pool for them. Of course, some livestock farmers do without it, but experts still advise not to save costs on this item, since the lack of access to bathing water negatively affects both the quality of the nutria skin and its health.

Nutriya maintenance and care

Although, in general, nutria are unpretentious in conditions of maintenance and care, but they do not tolerate cold. At low temperatures, animals can freeze their legs or tails. Therefore, for their maintenance on small farms, heated rooms with an air temperature of at least 8 ° C are used. A separate place is equipped for the maintenance of uterus, where the temperature should be maintained at a level of 16-20 ° C. In general, the optimal temperature for nutria is 15-20 ° C. But even in the summer, when the thermometer rises to 40 ° C, in the presence of a shaded place and sufficient water, these animals feel quite comfortable. However, at a higher temperature (which is not uncommon for the southern regions of Russia), animals can receive heat stroke, which often ends in their death.

To save space, houses are usually placed in two tiers, and the farm is made in two or even three floors. Pay great attention to the preliminary layout of your farm, taking into account the convenience of feeding feed, water, cleaning rooms and houses.

For the maintenance of nutria, special dwellings are used, consisting of two parts - a walking and feeding platform with a pool and a cage house. The width of the house for pregnant and lactating queens is 60 cm, the height is 80 cm, and the length is 120 cm. The young are kept in a group of 10-15 animals, for which you need 2-3 such dwellings as for the queens. When designing a livestock feed platform, each animal should have 20-25 square meters. cm.

As a rule, houses are made deaf with hinged doors and 25 to 25 cm lazes communicating with the platform. Since nutria are rodents, the wooden walls of houses are covered with metal mesh on the inside so that animals do not gnaw them. Walls are not recommended to be made too high. Although nutria love to climb walls, they are not very dexterous. Falling from a higher height can cause personal injury. If the cages are supposed to be made single-tier, but the upper part is covered with a net, otherwise the animals may crawl out of them.

The floor of the walking platform is concreted under a slight slope and equipped with a drinking pool. This is a very simple design, which is a gutter in concrete or mounted on the floor cut along a metal pipe with a diameter of 40 cm. However, you can do with a regular flat bath or a simple trough. If the pool is installed in the cage of the uterus, then a small inclined descent is equipped for young animals. After swimming, the skin of the kids gets wet, becomes heavy, because of which puppies often can not get out of the water and drown.

Nutria are clean animals and do not have a pungent odor, like polar foxes or ferrets. Moreover, the place of their maintenance requires regular care. It is recommended to change the pool water daily. It is also often necessary to clean the cells daily, change the drinking water and remove the remnants of uneaten feed so that they do not deteriorate. In winter, ice or snow is put in drinkers.

Please note: nutria are very shy animals and do not tolerate noise. With frequent sharp loud noises, the risk of abortion in pregnant females increases, animals lose their appetite, become aggressive. This is important to consider even at the stages of choosing a site for a farm: if there is some kind of manufacturing enterprise, warehouses next to it, construction is underway, etc., it is better to choose another place.

In general, nutria are friendly, but individual animals may be aggressive towards their relatives and / or person. Such animals must be kept separate from others and treated with care. When transplanted, they are taken by the tail, grabbing the hind legs to avoid scratches and bites. Non-aggressive nutrias are transferred, holding with one hand the middle of the tail, and the other between the front paws under the chest. Pregnant females need to be handled especially carefully - they cannot be held upright for a long time and cannot be grabbed sharply by the tail. Avoid touching the animal's back, but it is unlikely that he will refuse to stroke his stomach.

Proper Nutrition and Nutrition Care

In the countries of South America where nutria comes from, these animals inhabit lakes and rivers with a slow flow of water. On shallow shores they build nests and dig holes with a nesting chamber. Nutria in its natural habitat feeds mainly on the juicy parts of stems, leaves and rhizomes of aquatic and coastal plants (reed, cattail, reed, water lily, arrowhead, etc.). Also eats leeches, toothless and does not disdain fish.

The best way to save on organizing a nutria breeding business is to choose a plot for its construction near a reservoir with a lot of vegetation. For a day, nutria weighing 4-5 kg ​​(average weight of a young female) eats up to 2 kg of natural feed. If there is a pond or lake near the farm, you will provide sufficient fodder from spring to autumn. The diet of nutria in the summer includes 250-350 grams of herbaceous plants (peas, clover, alfalfa), 120-170 grams of concentrates (with the content of grain crops - barley, rye), 5-10 grams of Makukha, a little salt and fish meal.

In winter, hay replaces fresh grass. Also, animals need to be regularly given vegetables: carrots, cabbage, potatoes (potatoes are given raw or pre-steamed or boiled). Nutria also love beets, but these root crops should be given in a limited amount to females during the gestation period, otherwise they may provoke premature birth. Root crops (beets, carrots) must first be washed and cleaned of dirt and rot.

In addition, nutria love reeds, beet and carrot tops, they gnaw with pleasure branches of oak, poplar, willow and birch (in spring it is better to give branches with young shoots), vine, weeds, corn (it is harvested at the stage of flowering and spikelets) ) Do not give nutria branches of hornbeam, ash, bird cherry and linden. Herbal food is recommended to pre-wet. The predominance in the diet of female nutria dry food leads to the birth of weak offspring or even miscarriage. Make sure that poisonous plants - hemlock, celandine, digitalis, and shingles do not get into the fodder mass. One of the most useful food for nutria is algae, which can be given daily in a ratio of 10-20% of the total feed.

Nutria are very picky animals. If possible, they first eat concentrated cereal feed, then succulent, then fruits and vegetables, and trample the grass and hay. Therefore, it is best to knead the feed in one mass. Concentrates or compound feed is first boiled or steamed with boiling water. They are given to adult animals as a whole, and to young animals in crushed form.

Nutria are well domesticated, even respond to the call of the owner and take food from their hands. There are no special requirements for the equipment of nutrient feeders. The main thing is that they are securely fixed. Keep in mind that nutria are quite powerful animals and can drag or turn feeders and drinkers. Most farmers use troughs in the form of narrow troughs that are fixed to the wall with latches. The animal will not overturn such a feeding trough and will not budge, but at the same time it can be quickly removed for washing.

Nutria is fed twice a day, preferably at the same time. Moreover, when feeding mixed feed in the morning, they give 40-50% of the total volume, and the remaining 50-60% in the evening. This is due to the fact that in the natural habitat, the bog beaver leads mainly a nocturnal lifestyle. When kept in captivity, it can be active during the day, but nevertheless it is most mobile in the evening and at night, including in terms of nutrition.

With separate feeding in the morning, all nutria, except for pregnant and lactating females, are given a daily norm of concentrates (for pregnant and lactating 75% of the norm in the morning, and the rest in the evening). Fruits and root crops are produced at lunchtime, grass in the afternoon, and hay in the evening.

Features of breeding nutria

Puberty in males and females occurs already at 4-5 months of life. However, to obtain healthy offspring, it is recommended not to rush and wait with the mating until 7-8 months, when the animals gain 4-5 kg. Hunting in females occurs every 24-30 days and lasts 30-40 hours, so it is so important to carefully monitor your animals.

As a rule, the group mating method is used when 10-15 young and lactated females are placed in the pen to the male. After 45-50 days, the females are checked for pregnancy. To do this, they gently take her tail with one hand, and gently probe the stomach with the other. During pregnancy, several spherical embryos with a diameter of about two centimeters should be detected.

Pregnant females must be put in separate houses in order to avoid repeated incidents of fraught with abortion, or aggression in relation to other animals. As mentioned above, for the birth of a full and healthy offspring, it is recommended to equip pools for pregnant females. In the autumn-winter period, fish oil is introduced into their diet. It is recommended to exclude any possibility of fright for a pregnant female (the unexpected appearance of a person in front of the cage, the presence of other types of animals - for example, dogs, loud sharp sounds, etc.).

Pregnancy in nutria lasts 127-135 days, while young growth is fully developed: newborn nutria can already see, walk, swim, have teeth and hair. Childbirth usually takes place at night. 2-3 days before their onset, the female loses her appetite. Delivery lasts from 20 minutes to 12 hours. This process does not require, as a rule, any human intervention (except, perhaps, litter change at the end of childbirth).

Moreover, it is not recommended to disturb the giving birth female, as she becomes aggressive and can attack. If during the day after the birth the female’s behavior changes - she becomes restless, does not feed the puppies, but runs around the cage, then experts recommend replanting her with the male for several hours, and then returning her to the babies.

Sometimes healthy young animals can nibble weak young ones. This happens either when there is a shortage of protein feed, vitamins and minerals in the diet of animals, or if the fertility is excessively high. One uterus can bring from 1-3 to 8-10 puppies. This "unevenness" must be corrected: each female should feed approximately the same number of babies - an average of about five. To do this, the female with a small amount of offspring is removed for 5-10 minutes from the house for a walk, laying at this time another 2-3 puppies from a larger family. This is best done on the first day - until the kids have acquired the smell of someone else's "nest".

Contain females with puppies in warm and clean houses. In the first two or three days for babies there is a great danger of hypothermia. Inspect babies in the first week after birth. Healthy animals, as a rule, actively move and eat well (from 2-3 days they already eat regular food), in the summer they swim in the pool. If the cubs are sluggish, they spend most of the time in one place, their fur falls off, the reason may be a lack of milk in the female.

To test this assumption, the female is caught, carefully turned on its back, holding its paws, and milk is gently squeezed out of the nipples. If there is really not enough milk, you need to improve the puppies ’diet with additional feed. In addition, other factors can influence the well-being and development of nutria - for example, too low or high temperature in the house, lack of water, etc.

A newborn nutria weighs about 200 grams, and after two months its weight reaches one kilogram. At this age, puppies are separated from their mothers, sorted and sent either for fattening or for rearing young animals. Nutria grow up to 1.5-2 years, they live for 6-7 years, and the active period of reproduction is 3-4 years.

With good care and good nutrition, the growth of nutria slows down after 7-8 months. Keeping them longer becomes unprofitable. At this age, males weigh about 5-6 kg (2-3 kg of pure meat), and their skin is already of good enough quality. Primary hairline changes to permanent at 4 months. Nutria shed throughout the year. The skins received from November to March are considered the best in quality.

For breeding, it is recommended that only the strongest and most active males are allowed, who are not related to the breeding females. The most prolific females, who raised the most puppies in the first lactation, are left as queens. When selecting, you must also take into account the color of the hairline of animals.

Disease Prevention Among Nutria

Nutria are quite resistant to many common diseases (compared, at least, with other fur animals). Of course, individual characteristics of each individual animal are of great importance. When buying, pay attention to the color of the nutria cutters. In healthy adult animals they are bright orange, in young animals and in old nutria they are somewhat lighter. Very pale (light orange and yellowish) incisors with dark spots are an alarming sign. It is better to refuse to purchase such animals.

Any disease is easier to prevent than to cure, and the best disease prevention in nutria is to maintain cleanliness in their cells and aviaries, which must be cleaned every day. In spring and autumn, veterinarians advise to process the farm and equipment with a 5% solution of lysoline or creolin or a 2% solution of formalin. Rugs moistened with disinfectant solutions are placed at the entrance to the premises. Rats or mice should not be allowed to appear on the farm. Garbage and dung pits are covered with bleach, and the feed is stored indoors.

Of course, you need to clean the enclosures before introducing new animals and observe the 30-day quarantine (that is, keep new animals in isolation from other animals during this period). If any suspicious symptoms appear, call a veterinarian and follow his recommendations.

The following diseases are most common. When poor-quality feeds get into feed mixtures, especially during the transfer from winter to summer feeding, intestines and bloating are found in nutria. Nutria are prone to frostbite, in order to avoid which it is necessary to maintain the recommended temperature regime in the pens.

In addition, these animals have diseases of the digestive system caused by malnutrition, lack of salt, chalk, succulent and vitamin feed in the diet. When eating poisonous plants, dahlia tubers, sprouted potatoes, nutria can have food poisoning, which can lead to illnesses or even death of animals, as well as to abortions in uterus.

При травмах, ушибах и переломах ранки нужно смазывать настойкой йода, присыпать антисептиком с наложением повязки.

Из заразных болезней для нутрий наиболее опасен туберкулез, кокцидиоз, паратиф, фасициолез (гельминтозное заболевание), туляремия и пр. При подозрении на такие заболевания следует сразу же вызвать врача. Для профилактики заболеваний органов дыхания (воспаления легких), которые возникают как осложнение при простуде, необходимо устанавливать утепленные домики-клетки и использовать плотные подстилки.

Sysoeva Lilia

(c) www.clogicsecure.com - a portal to business plans and guidelines for starting a small business 08/18/2019


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