The Impact of Management Practices on Female Capybara Reproductive Parameters in Captivity

Abstract

The high reproductive potential of capybaras is extremely relevant to their management. In the wild they can produce up to two litters per year, of one to seven young, with a mean of four (Ojasti 1973), and this while subject to seasonal variations in food availability and quality (Moreira et al. 2012). Thus it might be expected that animals reared in captivity, with a constant supply of high-quality food, would produce larger litters within lower birth intervals, and could breed throughout the year. However, the reproductive parameters recorded so far in captivity are similar to those observed in the wild. A number of studies have shown that different husbandry practices impact reproduction differently, some suggesting significant potential improvement in reproductive indices in captivity. In this chapter, therefore, we evaluate the impact of management practices on capybara reproductive parameters, such as litter size and sex ratio, birth intervals, breeding age, and newborn mortality in confined farming systems and zoos. The captive breeding data presented here were obtained from research stations in Piracicaba, State of São Paulo, Brazil (Nogueira 1997), and in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Cueto 1999; Alvarez and Kravetz 2006), and from zoos all around the world (Chapman 1991).