Vet World   Vol.18   September-2025  Article - 18 

Multivariate evaluation of protein and energy utilization in Peruvian Guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) under different feeding regimens

Background and Aim: Guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) production is vital for food security in Andean countries and increasingly relevant in parts of Africa. Optimizing nutrient utilization is critical to enhance productivity, farmer income, and sustain­ability. This study employed a multivariate approach to evaluate crude protein and energy digestibility and metabolism in Peruvian guinea pigs under different feeding regimens (maintenance, restricted, and ad libitum) at various ages.

Materials and Methods: Forty-two male guinea pigs were housed individually in metabolic cages and fed a pelleted diet formulated according to the National Research Council (1995) recommendations. Digestibility and metabolism trials were conducted at 52, 90, and 145 days of age across three feeding levels. Variables including dry matter intake (DMI), gross energy intake (GEI), digestible energy, metabolizable energy (ME), crude protein intake (CPI), and retained protein (RP) were measured. Data were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering to identify intake-efficiency patterns.

Results: DMI, GEI, and CPI increased significantly with age and feeding level, strongly correlating with body weight (r > 0.7). Protein retention efficiency (RP/CPI) was highest at maintenance feeding (83.5%) but declined to 73.6% in ad libitum-fed animals at 145 days, indicating protein catabolism when intake exceeded requirements. In contrast, energy metabolizability (ME/GE) peaked under ad libitum feeding (79.5% at 90 days). PCA revealed that PC1 (48.5% variance) was associated with intake and growth, whereas PC2 (18.1%) was linked to metabolic efficiency of protein and energy. Cluster analysis distin­guished three groups by feeding level and age, confirming that higher intake reduced protein utilization efficiency despite supporting faster growth.

Conclusion: Multivariate analysis demonstrated that while ad libitum feeding maximized growth and energy metaboliz­ability, it reduced protein retention efficiency, emphasizing the need for balanced protein–energy ratios tailored to the physiological stage. These findings provide a framework for designing age- and intake-specific feeding strategies to enhance nutrient efficiency, meat production, and sustainability in guinea pig systems.

Keywords: crude protein, guinea pig, metabolizable energy, nutrient efficiency, principal component analysis.

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How to cite this article: Tapie WA, Escobar-Restrepo CS, and Manrique-Hincapie JF (2025) Multivariate evaluation of protein and energy utilization in Peruvian Guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) under different feeding regimens, Veterinary World, 18(9): 2774-2784.

Received: 06-06-2025   Accepted: 22-08-2025   Published online: 18-09-2025

Corresponding author: William Armando Tapie    E-mail: watapiec@unal.edu.co

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2025.2774-2784

Copyright: Tapie, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.