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. 2023 Mar 1;13(5):895.
doi: 10.3390/ani13050895.

Effect of Parental Age, Parity, and Pairing Approach on Reproduction in Strain 13/N Guinea Pigs (Cavia porcellus)

Sarah C Genzer  1 , Timothy Flietstra  2 , JoAnn D Coleman-McCray  2 , Cassandra Tansey  1 , Stephen R Welch  2 , Jessica R Spengler  2
Affiliations

Effect of Parental Age, Parity, and Pairing Approach on Reproduction in Strain 13/N Guinea Pigs (Cavia porcellus)

Sarah C Genzer et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Guinea pigs are important animal models for human disease, and both outbred and inbred lines are utilized in biomedical research. The optimal maintenance of guinea pig colonies, commercially and in research settings, relies on robust informed breeding programs, however, breeding data on specialized inbred strains are limited. Here, we investigated the effects of parental age, parity, and pairing approaches on mean total fetus count, percentage of female pups in the litter, and pup survival rate after 10 days in strain 13/N guinea pigs. Our analysis of colony breeding data indicates that the average litter size is 3.3 pups, with a 25.2% stillbirth rate, a failure-to-thrive outcome in 5.1% of pups, and a 10 day survival rate of 69.7%. The only variable to significantly affect the reproductive outcomes examined was parental age (p < 0.05). In comparison to adults, both juvenile and geriatric sows had lower total fetus counts; juvenile boars had a higher percentage of females in litters, and geriatric boars had a lower 10 day survival rate of pups. These studies provide valuable information regarding the reproductive characteristics of strain 13/N guinea pigs, and support a variety of breeding approaches without significant effects on breeding success.

Keywords: age; breeding; guinea pig; litter size; pairing strategy; reproduction; sex ratio.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of strain 13/N guinea pig colony, showing the parental breeding age and litter size. (a) Kernel Density Estimation for Age at Delivery for sows (n = 266) and boars (n = 260). (b) Distribution of number of fetuses in the dataset, from pregnancies yielding viable pups (n = 267).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Kernel density estimation of guinea pig strain 13/N sow weight, by age at delivery and age group, as represented in the dataset. Sow weights followed a normal distribution with flatter curves, as expected, for juvenile (0 through 150 d, n = 19) and geriatric populations (older than 900 d, n = 7) due to the lower number of animals in those age categories relative to adults (151 through 900 d, n = 147).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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