I never realized just how big Peruvian guinea pigs were..

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Anyone ever seen one? Cause I sure hadnt!

I was recently lucky enough to visit Ecuador. While there, we visited a native village and saw the head of the communities house. She had probably, ooh, 50 pigs? They were all very skittish, and super super loud. Some of the biggest sows were the size of my holland lops. Absolutely huge animals. I wanted just to snatch up a few babies to take home, ha.

The babies could to into these corner bars to get away from the parents. When I first saw them I knew why they were there, but paused for a second and truly wondered if they could get out. Just doesn't seem like they can

They were all in separate concrete cage things. I assume one was for pregnant sows, a few were for raising them / sows with pups, one for boars, and idk about others.

They were huge. That blonde white girl looked to be a normalish sized guinea pig, maybe a bit on the small side. But you can still see the huge size comparison.


They also had rabbits.

We got cuy at a restaraunt, and saw some being cooked (I'll try and add pics of it). It was.. Ok. Not cooked too well. Super oily, deep fried. Otherwise just tasted like fish or dark game meat. But it's affordable for them to raise. Hopefully with some garlic ill like it better, considering I'm trying to breed my own meat guys lol.

 

[Zass]

Nice pics!!!! I find them really interesting.

 

[Nyctra]

ooh, awesome!
My boars were hitting 3lb...I only had my breeding herd for about a year, from 3 random pigs I gathered from my area. I definitely had some cavy that matured smaller than others. I remember once in a while kids would come see them and be surprised by how big they could get... :lol: but I guess they'd still be smaller than the giant cuy.

 

[akane]

I have had an american pet bred guinea pig surpass 3lbs. Cuy look like they get well beyond that though. Something like 12 years ago there was a report that cuy were getting too small to be efficient food because they were eating all the biggest ones. People stepped in to help turn it around since it's a major meat source for some. With improved breeding and genetic engineering pictures of huge cuy have been showing up the past few years. This stuff pops up on the pet guinea pig forums occasionally where people cringe and scream about how inhumane it is. I was reading an article that talked about cuy being exported in increasingly large amounts because other countries are finding them to be a good meat source now. The US is still resistant and I'm not sure what hoops you have to go to in order to import them. In the near future it may be much easier to get meat raising size cuy http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-07-23/h ... -plates-us .

 

[cmfarm]

Those are pretty neat. My step-dad is from Peru and when he was a kid their family had guinea pigs running around their house that they would eat. I wonder how hard it is to import some of the big ones. My mom and step-dad are living there now to help take care of his mom but will be moving back as soon as their house sells.

 

[grumpy]

I don't want to hi-jack this, but can they survive in colder temps. "Like" in
the barn with the rabbits? I've always thought they would be 'fun' to keep.
Just never did it.

grumpy.

 

[Schipperkesue]

Wow! How beautiful! And large! Now I know how they can consider eating them.

I love the all-concrete construction!

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

I don't want to hi-jack this, but can they survive in colder temps. "Like" in
the barn with the rabbits? I've always thought they would be 'fun' to keep.
Just never did it.

grumpy.

No, they're very fragile. They need to be kept in a fairly warm area. It's their biggest downfall. Otherwise you can just graze them all summer and eat the babies

Edit: well they're not very fragile, just fragile with temps.