Making a Living From Guinea Pigs - Abyssinian Guinea Pig Tips

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These are external links and will open in a new window. Most people see them as fluffy adorable pets, but in Peru guinea pigs - or "cuy" as they are known locally - are a delicacy.

In the past few years their popularity has really taken off and a boom in guinea pig farming is helping many peasant farmers living below the minimum wage to get out of poverty.

You can hear them as soon as you walk into the dusty barn. The open cages are filled with hundreds of squeaking brown and white guinea pigs, waiting for their owner, Maria Camero, to fill up their red water buckets and give them corn. Maria and her family produce guinea pigs on a much larger scale now thanks to her son-in-law Alessio Cresci.

Guinea Pig Breeding for Fun, Profit and Now Even Food

The Italian fell in love with Shelia, Maria's daughter, and decided to move to Peru and build up their business. As well as supplying to local restaurants, they also sell and sometimes donate start-up kits to local farmers who want to get involved, consisting of a breeding pair of guinea pigs and the food and pens that they need. This business lets me do that," says Maria. Thirty dollars a month is the average wage for a peasant farmer. The key to their success is the restaurant business, which can't get enough of cuy.

Producers are even looking to the US as a how to make money breeding guinea pigs. At first it was hard to get permission for officials to let frozen guinea pigs into the US where, like most of how to make money breeding guinea pigs world, they are regarded as pets. But with the support of academics and anthropologists, one exporter, Mega Business, has persuaded authorities that this is part of Andean culture and guinea pigs fallout new vegas dead money walkthrough getting dog to stay have a very important nutritional value.

In fact, Peruvians have never seen cuy as pets. And although work at home companies like sitel accept they are small and sweet, their culinary value trumps their investment options for minors. Jaime Pesaque is the owner of Mayta, a high-end restaurant in upmarket Lima.

He buys about organically fed guinea pigs a month. He says they are high in protein and low in fat. Traditionally guinea pigs were served teeth, claws and all as a kind of kebab on how to play shake your money maker on guitar local streets - a method that put many people off.

Jaime has found a more user-friendly recipe. I was dreading trying this national delicacy.

I remember those fangs and claws thrust up at me through a train on my way to Machu Picchu. I vowed never to try it.

And Jaime's version is delicious. The meat is sweet and juicy, a bit like rabbit and pork, and the skin is crispy. He has a new convert.

Many of the people eating in high-end restaurants are tourists who are eager to try something different - provided it is served in the right way. Although they will always be seen first and foremost as pets for the majority of people in the world, in Peru guinea pigs are offering a way out of poverty. For more on this story, listen to BBC World Service's World Business Report.

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A popular Peruvian delicacy By Jane Chambers Lima, Peru.

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