GUINEA PIG MANAGEMENT MANUAL - Benson Institute

The sanitary state of the animals is also influences the age of the pairing. The guinea pigs that
live in clean areas and that do not have parasites like ticks, fleas, or lice grow faster. Also, very
cold weather or excess heat lowers the reproduction age for the guinea pigs.
The females can start their reproducing age at approximately 3 months old, or when they reach
60% of the weight of adults (about a half kilo); they should be healthy and have no defects.
To use males as reproducers, they should be more than 4 months old, weigh more than
600grams, be healthy, and have no defects.
USE OF RECORDS IN REPRODUCTION
In all breeding systems it is beneficial to use records in order to maintain control of the animals.
They teach us the best aspects of production.
One should take into account the date of pairing (start of the reproducing stage), and of the
births, which permits us to have better control over the birth intervals of the females. This helps
us to identify females that are left out, or that have fertility problems, know the number of births
per year, and the size of the litter, which helps us determine which animals to keep and which
animals to remove because of infertility.
Records should also be kept during the breeding phase in such a way that when the animals are
weaned, the date is taken for weaning, the species is noted (if more than 2 are taken) sex, number
of animals, date of extraction (for sale or reproducing) etc.
The following is a presentation of the records that can be used in family – commercial breeding:
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