How much does a pair of bamboo rat breeding stock cost? How long until a beginner's stock is ready for market, and how many should you raise?
The bamboo rat can be said to be a treasure from head to tail; whether it is the skin, or the meat, fur, blood, and so on, all have fairly high value, so it is extremely sought after on the market. Currently, all bamboo rat products on the market sell for a high price, so many people raise them to make money. So how much does a pair of bamboo rat breeding stock cost? How long until they can be sold? How many should a beginner raise?
2018 bamboo rat breeding stock prices:
Considering the price of bamboo rat breeding stock, prices vary from place to place. It depends on where you are. Take Guangxi and Sichuan for example; every city in Guangxi and Sichuan has a different price, so I can only give you a range to consider. For example: in some parts of Sichuan, 400~500 per pair, while in some areas it is just over 200 per pair. In Guangxi it is a bit cheaper, somewhere between 160-240. If you want to know the specific price of bamboo rat breeding stock, you can go to the local bamboo rat market to check it out.
How long until they can be sold?
Bamboo rats generally sold on the market weigh between 2.5 jin and 3.5 jin. From birth to being ready for sale, a young rat must go through at least 10 to 12 months or more. They can grow to 2.5 jin to over 3 jin. The food cost for an adult rat can be calculated at 5-7 yuan per month. This does not include labor costs. There is not much difference between commercial rats and breeding rats.
From birth to weaning, a bamboo rat pup needs about one month (30-35 days) before it can be weaned. A weaned bamboo rat generally weighs about 1 jin to 1.5 jin. Once it is finally raised to about 2 jin, it can be sold as bamboo rat breeding stock, or kept for oneself as breeding stock for pairing.
Commercial bamboo rats are not only those raised from pups to the point where they can be sold; bamboo rats that have been pregnant, those selected out and culled, those that love to fight, and so on can also be sold as commercial bamboo rats. If we go by the time for normal growth to the point of sale, a commercial bamboo rat can be sold as a commercial bamboo rat once it reaches about 3 jin, and this process takes 10-12 months. Of course, some farms add a little piglet or chick feed to shorten the time to market, so they can be sold as commercial bamboo rats in about 8 months.
How many is appropriate to raise?
If you are raising them part-time, that is, as a family-style operation, where you have a main job of your own and feed the bamboo rats in your spare time. Or, say, you have a main job and then buy bamboo rats to give to your family to raise, and when the scale grows, you do the main raising yourself. In this situation, my suggestion is to start with 20 pairs, no more, no less. If they all get sick, you can bear the extent of the loss. Why not 30 pairs, 40 pairs? You can also choose to go higher, but I suggest just 20 pairs - auspicious, right. Of course, these 20 pairs should all be paired up, one male and one female. Using 20 pairs to practice and learn the techniques, or to understand the market during the raising process, or to sell a few commercial bamboo rats yourself during the raising process, is enough. Take the price as an example: if the local price is 400 per pair, then 20 pairs is 8000 yuan. For you, still working, if one day they really all die, you can still bear it. This is one advantage of part-time raising: you have a source of income and can maintain a normal life.
If you are raising them full-time, that is, giving up all work and spending all your time on your bamboo rats. My suggestion is to start with 50 pairs, that is, 100 animals. The premise is that you must go and learn some basic bamboo rat raising techniques, as well as disease prevention and treatment. If you have not done this step, then do not even raise 50 pairs. Because you are just waiting to hand over money. With 50 pairs, raised from about 1 jin for more than half a year, under normal development, the number can multiply very quickly. In the second year, you can basically do some selling, which means you can see income. Of course, all of this is said under idealized conditions.
If you want to see economic income in the second year, my suggestion is to introduce 100 pairs of breeding stock, that is, 200 animals. This also requires you to understand the techniques before you can do it. This counts as going big. For bamboo rat farming, seeing returns takes a certain amount of time, because there is a certain breeding cycle. If you take it slowly, then you can only get results slowly. If it is your first time and you think your techniques are pretty good, then be ruthless and go big once: introduce 100 pairs or more than 100 pairs, raise them for a year, and you will find that you are a notch above the previous two options of starting with 20 pairs or 50 pairs.