Evaluación del comportamiento productivo de cuyes (Cavia porcellus) en la etapa de engorde, alimentados con diferentes niveles de pulpa de café (Coffea arabica).

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the productive behavior of guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) during fattening period, nourished with coffee pulp (Coffea arabica), looking for a balanced diet containing adequate nutritional needs for the animal. It was considered the weekly weight gain, mortality rate, carcass yield and the final guinea pigs’ weight loss. The project was developed with the author’s own equipment, in Sevilla Don Bosco civil parish (Morona Santiago province), in a completely randomized design, analyzed through the statistical package InfoStat and tested with Tukey 0,05 of significance. For this purpose, four treatments and eight repetitions were implemented: the additions of coffee pulp flour were 0% (T0), 10% (T1), 20% (T2) and 30% (T3) in the balanced diet, in addition to fodder of elephant grass at will (Pennisetum purpureum Schumacher). The research was carried out with 32 experimental units, there were used male guinea pigs Peruvian breed improved to II type, 78 days old, and it took 97 days to develop all project. By completing the statistical analysis no significant differences were detected in any of the four evaluated variables; the best numerically superior treatments were the following: the major weight gain was (T0) with an average of 82,78 grams of weekly gain, the treatment (T0) provided 76,81% in carcass yield, no deaths have been registered and the major final average weight was related to the treatment (T0) with 1.316 grams. In conclusion, the coffee pulp flour is not productive in guinea pigs. It is recommended to experiment it in other species to observe the tolerance and advantages of mentioned nutritional derivative.