Blind man raises pheasants and finds his way to prosperity

Young man loves to figure things out, sets his mind on “chickens lay eggs, eggs hatch chickens”

Liang Ruiguo, 31 years old, a villager of Xisunlou Village, Beiwa Township, Lingshou County. When he was a child, he developed an eye disease, and even after nearly bankrupting the family it could not be cured. At 15, he went blind in both eyes.

After the colorful world disappeared from his life, he left the classroom and helped his parents with farm work at home. In those years, he also lamented the unfairness of fate, but it was also then that he began to "use his heart," because he did not want to live worse than others.

Whenever he heard people talk about something or a technique, he would remember it carefully. For example, when a fellow villager came to his home and mentioned fruit tree grafting, he would ask a few more questions, "How exactly do you do it?" After the neighbor left, he would think about trying it on his own persimmon tree.

The low brick house and small courtyard, surrounded by tall, bright new houses, is Liang Ruiguo's home.

In the corners on both sides of the small courtyard are rows of chicken cages, and several fruit trees, some tall and some short, create layers of greenery in the courtyard.

Liang Ruiguo's father, Liang Fayun, pointing to a tree grafted from black date and persimmon, said, "This was planted by my son, and that peach tree too, grafted with three or four varieties, fruiting early and late, so there are peaches to eat all summer." He said his son just loves to figure things out.

Indeed, raising chickens was also something Liang Ruiguo figured out. Six years ago, he learned from television that someone picked up ten pheasant eggs and set out on the road to wealth, and he felt a stir of excitement.

In the spring of 2010, hearing that a relative's family raised pheasants, he and his mother brought back one male and one female, planning to carve out a future by "chickens lay eggs, eggs hatch chickens."

Starting the business: hatching eggs with an electric blanket, using his eyelids to sense the temperature of breeding eggs

How to hatch the eggs into chicks became the biggest problem. Wild pheasants basically do not sit on their nests. Liang Ruiguo had his mother spend 35 yuan to buy an old hen, but the old hen also would not hatch the eggs properly, so in the end he decided to do it himself.

Liang Ruiguo took apart an electric blanket at home, cut it to the size of a cardboard box, and, feeling with his hands, rearranged the heating wires neatly one by one. Because he worried the breeding eggs would be heated unevenly, he also found a plastic bag, filled it with water to serve as a hatching "warm bed," and laid cotton wadding on top.

Hatching pheasant eggs needs to be kept at around 38°C. If the electric blanket heats for too long, the temperature rises; unplug the power and the temperature falls. How to control the temperature? This problem is hard even for ordinary people, let alone a blind person.

In the end, Liang Ruiguo came up with a method. He put the thermometer on the water bag and had his father stay with him. When it heated to 38°C, his father would tell him, and he would hurry to unplug the power. But he could not have his father keep watch forever, could he? Liang Ruiguo came up with another method. He took a 38°C egg and pressed it against his eyelid, tried hard to remember that temperature by sensing it, and then "freed" his father.

The electric blanket heated up and cooled down too fast, needing to be powered on and off every ten-plus minutes. Liang Ruiguo held a timed alarm clock in his hand. When it rang every fifteen minutes, he would pick up an egg and put it against his eyelid to "measure" the temperature, over and over again.

In Liang Ruiguo's world, although there is no distinction between day and night, the 24 days of hatching let him truly experience going "day and night without rest," with sleep cut into countless "fifteen minutes."

Finally, out of eight or nine breeding eggs, two little pheasants broke out of their shells. Feeling the damp little chicks, he laughed out loud.

Hard development: sleeping in the chicken house, measuring water and feed by finger in the old house

Primitive hatching was so difficult that, looking back, Liang Ruiguo sighed, "No technique, no equipment, just relying on my own blind figuring, it won't work." For a period afterward, he stopped "hatching."

In the second half of 2010, Liang Ruiguo went to Shijiazhuang to attend a massage training class, where he met his current wife, who is also blind. At the same time, he also bought a "temperature controller." From then on, the turning point began.

With high-tech equipment combined with an electric blanket, hatching became simple. By the end of 2012, he had around 1,000 pheasants at home. Gradually, he bought an incubator.

Using equipment is very simple for ordinary people; a few presses of a button can get it done. But Liang Ruiguo cannot see, so he needs his father's help. What mode a few presses display, he silently counts and remembers in his heart, and afterward operates it independently.

The house where Liang Ruiguo and his family live is only 50 m from the chicken house. He walks a small alley dozens of times every day.

To watch over the chicks and hatching equipment, he sleeps at night in the old house by the chicken house. Only when he hears the chickens crowing and the humming of the equipment does he feel at ease.

The reporter saw that in front of each chicken cage, two plastic troughs were hung with wire for water and feed, all made by Liang Ruiguo from plastic pipes and drink bottles.

For a blind person, it is not easy to control the amount when giving water and feed. Each time, Liang Ruiguo puts his finger into the water trough or feed trough to measure. In winter, his fingers are often bright red, and in severe cases the fingers crack and are streaked with blood.

Eager to help: giving chicks on credit and leading disabled friends to start businesses together

In this way, Liang Ruiguo walked the road of entrepreneurship with difficulty, and many disabled people, seeing this, also asked him about it.

Liang Ruiguo said that considering that disabled people have little labor capacity and live tightly, he developed the idea of leading everyone to raise pheasants together.

Now, Liang Ruiguo has established a breeding cooperative, and more than 20 disabled friends take chicks from him to raise at home.

Many times, the disabled friends who come to collect chicks have no spare money, so it is all on credit. After raising the chicks and selling them, they come back to pay for the chicks. Liang Ruiguo himself has little money either; the money from selling eggs is all invested in hatching, and now his own life is also tight.

Last year, Liang Ruiguo's only hatching equipment broke, so he felt his way through making an incubator himself, using the family's electric fan and light bulbs.

Liang Ruiguo not only hatches eggs for himself, but also helps other disabled people hatch eggs for free. This year, about 20 people pooled several thousand yuan to buy a new piece of equipment and placed it in Liang Ruiguo's chicken house. Everyone can bring their breeding eggs to him, and one month later directly take away the chicks. "He has technique, and he is warm-hearted!" Feng Ligang of Kongcun, Zhengding, has a leg disability. He has worked with Liang Ruiguo for more than a year, and when talking about this "capable" young man, he praises him endlessly.

Feng Ligang said that Liang Ruiguo's physical condition is worse than all of theirs, yet he does better than anyone, and this gives many disabled people great confidence.

Liang Ruiguo's father also said that he supports his son in raising livestock, and even more supports him in helping other disabled people. "Although he cannot see, he does no worse than a sighted person like me."