Abstract: The experiment studied the effect of different heat mode on the growth performance of kit at the age of seven-day old. The trial selected one-hundred fifty one-year old female mink with average body weight 1084.2 g±169.6 g, randomly divided into five groups, thirty female mink within one group, control group (without heat and cage structure), trial group Ⅰ (to heat 19 ℃ at the bottm of nest), trial group Ⅱ (to heat 15℃ at the bottm of nest), trial group Ⅲ (to heat 10 ℃ at the bottom of cage structure), trial group Ⅳ (cage structure without heating, <10 ℃), respectively. The results indicated that at the parturition, it had important effect of outside temperature on the survival of kit. It had no significant difference in litter of kit, survival kit in birth, survival rate of birth, survival kit within seven-day (P>0.1) in different group, but it had significantly different in survival rate of seven-day (P<0.01) and seven-day survival rate of Ⅰ group was obviously higher than that of trial Ⅲ group, while had no significant different in every group, but higher than the other groups. The gestion day of Ⅲ group was obviously longer than that of the other groups (P<0.01), while it had not significant different in the other groups. The litter assembly in Ⅰ and Ⅱ group was significantly lower than that of the other groups. The litter mix in Ⅰ group was the highest (26.34%) in all groups. The litter dispersion in Ⅳ group was the lowest (4.55%) in all groups. The Kit-retrieval time in control group was the shortest (5.24 s) in all groups. In a word, the heat way at the bottom of nest exceed that of cage structure. When to heat 19 ℃ at the bottom of nest, it was beneficial to kit survival.

Key words: nest; heat mode; kit survival