The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a small and arboreal New World monkey originating from South and Central America. The use of marmosets in biomedical research has grown rapidly over the past decades due to several key advantages of marmosets compared with other non-human primates (NHPs), including their smaller body size, easier handling and breeding in captivity, shorter gestation time, earlier sexual maturation, and lower zoonotic risks1,2,3,4,5,6. The common marmoset has a similar brain structure and brain function to humans and displays a rich repertoire of vocalizations and highly social behavior with rich emotions. It is a compelling NHP model for different types of neuroscience studies, such as studies on sensory processing7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14, vocal communication15,16,17,18,19, models of spinal cord injury20,21,22,23, Parkinson's disease24,25,26,27,28, and age-related diseases29. Compared with other NHPs, the common marmoset has a relatively high reproduction rate, which is potentially useful for transgenic modification30,31,32. This primate is also widely used in pharmacology, angiography, and pathogen and immune studies33,34,35,36,37,38,39. However, the supply of marmosets remains very limited, especially in China, and cannot meet the rapidly growing needs of scientific research.
In marmoset colonies, the adult animals are fed once or twice per day, and a few institutions alter the diet for juvenile marmosets40. Generally, infant marmosets usually grasp firmly onto the body of the father or elder siblings for daily care and are handed to the mother several times per day for milk. Some female marmosets give birth to triplets, and in this case, one or two infants cannot survive due to a lack of milk; moreover, some parents do not take care of their infants because they lack nursing experience or for other unknown reasons. This is a big loss for many laboratories. A few studies have reported methods of nutrition management for adult marmosets in captive settings40,41,42 utilizing foods and formulas with different macronutrient compositions, vitamins, and minerals, as well as different feeding protocols for enrichment (mashed, gelled, purified, or canned)2,41. One previous study reported a collaborative rearing method for marmoset triplets43, in which caregivers take one infant per day, hand-feed it throughout the day, and exchange it for another of the triplets on the next day. Although this method allows the infants to have parental care, it requires an experienced caregiver to grab the infant from the body of the parents every day and is labor-intensive. So far, no study has reported a detailed, step-by-step hand-rearing method for newborn marmosets.
The goal of the current study is to provide a hand-rearing method for those interested in marmoset development but with limited resources. In contrast to the previous collaborative rearing method43, the current method is an alternative that causes less disturbance to the infant's family and is easy to learn. Based on the basic rules of breastfeeding and 5 years of practice, this paper describes a hand-rearing method for raising infant marmosets that includes the preparation of the food, a timetable for feeding, the configuration of the temperature and humidity of the animal incubator, as well as the adaptation of the infant animals to the colony environment.