Nutria breeding as a business is considered one of the new and popular types of small business in the livestock industry.
He received such popularity for his availability, profitability and low cost. After all, these animals are famous for: valuable fur, tasty dietary meat, reminiscent of rabbit meat in properties, high fertility, unpretentiousness to the conditions of detention and the ability to eat cheap vegetable feed. In order to understand whether it is profitable to breed nutria, it is worth understanding this issue in more detail.
Advantages and disadvantages of a nutria breeding business.
Like everything in our mortal world, nutria breeding has both positive aspects and negative factors that should definitely be taken into account.
Advantages:
- unpretentiousness of animals to the conditions of detention;
- these animals are omnivores;
- fertility. Females give good offspring;
- animal fur is of high quality and warm, has various colors;
- dietary, low-fat meat.
Flaws:
- veterinary care for the prevention of various viruses and diseases;
- before acquiring a herd of nutria, you need to take care of finding a market for meat and skins;
- cleanliness. It is necessary to regularly clean the dwelling of animals, remove uneaten food and change the water.
How and where to contain nutria?
The nutria is a mammalian rodent. Reaches the big sizes, the maximum weight of 12 kg. Body length 50-80 cm, tail 30-50 cm. It looks like a beaver, has large incisors of bright orange color. The guard hairs are coarse and long, the underfur is wavy, soft and dense.
Under habitual conditions, it lives near water bodies and feeds on food of plant origin, giving preference to roots and shoots. Active activity leads in the dark.
Breeding nutria at home does not require special requirements. If you have your own private farm with a small plot, then such a business will suit you. An ideal home for these animals would be a barn with a courtyard for mandatory walking. The enclosure for nutria should be fenced with a metal fence or mesh, 1 meter high. Most often, cages and metal enclosures are used to keep animals.
Wooden structures cannot be used, as they simply gnaw them. The floor of the house is covered with hay or straw. They do not tolerate low temperatures. In the cold season, cages with animals should be transferred to a warm room without drafts, but with good ventilation. The temperature inside it should be at least eight degrees. The average cell size is not less than 2.5 sq.m.
Walking is a prerequisite for growing nutria. In addition to the fact that it will be necessary to concrete the floor in the place of walking, so also provide a sufficient amount of water. Some breeders even equip special small pools. This is due to the fact that the natural habitat of rodents is water, and they are also clean. They love to splash in the water and clean their luxurious skin there.
It is necessary to prevent contact of nutria with dogs and cats, to fight mice and rats, which can become carriers of dangerous diseases. In case of disease of nutria, they should be resettled in separate housing. This reduces the risk of infecting other individuals and avoiding their mass death.
Feed. What does a nutria eat?
It feeds mainly on plant foods, preferring the basal parts of stems and shoots. It is better to use plants that grow near water bodies: reeds, sedges, reeds. If there are no closely located ponds, then these animals will not refuse vegetables: carrots, beets, potatoes and other root crops. For feeding animals, only good-quality products can be used.
Water for cooking and drinking should be fresh and clean. Some breeders for the rapid growth of nutria buy inexpensive varieties of feed. Containers for feeding and drinking animals should be equipped near the walls of the enclosure and well fixed to them. Because if the nutria knock over the feeder, that is, they will no longer have this food.
Feed nutria 2 times a day. It is necessary to add feed of animal origin, mineral supplements and vitamins to the diet. The normal development of the animals, their productivity and the quality of the skins largely depend on this. Adult nutria consume about 2 kg of food per day.
Features of breeding nutria at home.
In order for healthy offspring to be born, mating of animals is carried out at the age of 7-8 months, when they reach a weight of 4-5 kg. At the onset of this age, nutria are capable of reproduction. The reproductive ability of the female organism of individuals does not depend on the time of year. Females can combine pregnancy and lactation and bring offspring every 4 months.
Catch nutria for transplantation and inspection should be so as not to cause them pain. They are carefully taken by the tail and carried over short distances. For carrying over long distances, a bag is used. Then they are carefully released into the cage.
The female, who is in the hunt, does not resist, flirts with the male, rumbles. After mating, the female is separated from the male. The day when the coating occurred is recorded. Regardless of whether mating has occurred or not, re-admission of the female to the male occurs within 6-8 days, starting from the 24th day after whelping. Usually family breeding of nutria is used.
A family is formed from sisters or unrelated females kept for a long time in one place. To do this, they are attached to one male. For breeding nutria, strong and active males are selected, older than females by 1-2 months. 48-50 days after the first mating, the female is checked for pregnancy. For this, her stomach is probed. The embryos in the uterus by the 50th day after mating are 2 cm in size and look like beads that move when pressed. Pregnancy of nutria lasts approximately 130 days.
Pregnant females should be moved to a separate cage from males to avoid repeated mating with them. It is dangerous by abortions or aggression from other animals. The diet should be balanced, it includes vitamins and fish oil. Also, it should be protected from sharp, noisy sounds, as nutria are shy animals. This is dangerous preterm birth. Cells must be kept clean.
Two weeks before birth, the cage must be thoroughly cleaned and fresh hay put in it.
Whelping often occurs at night and lasts 1-2 hours. The maximum number of puppies is 14. The young are born sighted, with teeth and well pubescent. On the 3rd day, they can consume food intended for adults. With a sufficient number of lactating females, litters need to be equalized. That is, from females with a large number of puppies, they are planted with females with a small litter.
This is usually done on the first day after birth, before the young have had time to absorb the smell of the nest. By two months, nutria reach a weight of 2 kg, at which time they are weaned from their mother. Nutria grow up to 1-2 years, life expectancy is 6-7 years. The active breeding period is up to three years.
Slaughter of animals.
In nutria, the most valuable fur is at the age of 9-18 months. Skins at this age are large. Of these, 70% are first grade. In animals aged 6-7 months, the skins are medium in size and are the second grade. And the skins of animals of a younger age have no value. The ripeness of the fur is judged by the degree of development of downy and covering hair. The fur of nutrias ready for slaughter is shiny, and the guard hairs cover the underfur well.
Dirty animals must be given the opportunity to swim 48 hours before slaughter. Nutria with packed fur will need to be combed. For half a day they can not be given food and drink.
With the left hand, the animal is grabbed by the tail and one hind paw. And with the right they hold a rounded stick and strike at the back of the head with a force that can immediately kill the animal. But at the same time, do not violate the integrity of the skin and do not crush the skull, thereby not causing bruising. Next, the body of the animal is tied up by the hind limbs and hung over the container. For exsanguination, the eyes are carefully cut out with a knife or the turbinates are pierced. The time between slaughter, bleeding and skinning should be short.
Take the skin.
It is necessary to free the body from the skin as soon as possible in order to prevent
the carcass from being hung on a hook by its hind legs. This position of the animal will provide convenience and speed in work.
Ring incisions are made in the skin of all paws along the border where there is no hair and around the anus. In this case, the male genital organs are removed and the tail is cut off.
Then an incision is made along the outer part of the thighs from the hock joint of one paw to the other.
After the cuts are made, the skin is carefully pulled down from the ventral and thoracic parts to the front paws. You can’t rush into this work, as you can damage the hairline.
Trim fabrics that interfere with the separation of the skin.
To remove the skin from the head, cut off the skin around the eyes and lips, ear cartilage, muscles. To prevent blood contamination of the removed part of the skin, it is wrapped in newspaper or sprinkled with sawdust. It is important not to stain your hair with grease in the process.
Sale of meat and fur.
Dietary, low-fat nutria meat can be sold at collective farm markets, or handed over to restaurants for sale. The average weight of an animal carcass is 8-9 kg, meat is purchased at 500 rubles per kg. This means that the income from one carcass will be 4000-4500 tr.
For the sale of skins, you can place an advertisement on the Internet. Nutria skins are of high quality and warm. Therefore, private traders buy them for the production of fur coats and hats.
How much money do you need to start a business.
In order to organize a nutria breeding business, approximately 110 thousand rubles will be required. To calculate, let’s imagine that we own our own land and we take care of the animals ourselves, without hiring staff.
For the calculation, we take 5 females and 1 male.
| Expenses | price | |
| one | feed | 20000 |
| 2 | animal housing equipment | 70000 |
| 3 | nutria | 20000 |
The amount may vary, based on the fact that there are no calculations for medicines and consumables. And if it is possible to make a dwelling for animals from the available materials at hand, then such a business will be even cheaper.
How much can you earn on breeding nutria.
In order to understand how much money you can get when growing nutria, you need to take into account a number of conditions:
- Number of rodents;
- Breed. (If an entrepreneur wants to breed animals in order to obtain fur, then you need to start a nutria with a colored color. If only for meat, then other breeds).
- Fertility.
On average, a female nutria brings two litters of 12 puppies per year. The wholesale price of meat on the market is 500 rubles per kg. The cost of one skin is about 400 rubles.
In order for the business to make a profit, you will have to wait about 1 year, and possibly less.
From this article, we can conclude that with proper organization of maintenance and proper care, nutria breeding will become a profitable business.
