What are the prospects for hedgehog farming?
The hedgehog is a valuable wild economic animal used both for medicinal purposes and as a food delicacy. Its meat is tender and nutritious, and it also has unique medicinal benefits, making it well loved by people. As living standards rise, the demand for wild game keeps growing, while wild resources are sharply declining and supply falls short of demand, creating a prominent imbalance between market supply and demand. Therefore, developing hedgehog farming is of great significance for enriching residents“shopping basket,” and the prospects for artificially raising hedgehogs are broad.
The prospects for hedgehog farming
1. The whole hedgehog is a treasure: its spines, fat, and meat are all valuable traditional Chinese medicines, with effects such as lowering qi and relieving pain, and can treat stomach ailments, kidney disease, breast disease, hemorrhoids, burns, scalds, and stop bleeding and dispel leakage. The hedgehog's brain, heart, liver, gallbladder, and kidneys can all be used as medicine. Hedgehog skin has even higher medicinal value.
2. Hedgehog skin is called yixiang or xianrenyi, and is an important traditional Chinese medicinal material. It has the effects of lowering qi and relieving pain, cooling blood and stopping bleeding, promoting qi flow and detoxifying, and reducing swelling and relieving pain. It mainly treats consumptive cough, regurgitation of food, abdominal pain with hernia accumulation, hemorrhoidal bleeding, uterine bleeding, seminal emission and impotence, and frequent urination.
3. Hedgehog meat is especially high in protein and fat. Its main medicinal effects are promoting appetite, improving digestive capacity, increasing protein utilization, stimulating the hematopoietic system, and significantly increasing hemoglobin, hematin, and red blood cells. It is the best health food for patients undergoing chemotherapy, post-surgery, postpartum women, those with anemia, and those with gastric dysfunction. It is also the best nutritional food for frail middle-aged and elderly people and thin children and adolescents. It is a medicinal product for treating various chronic diseases, with enormous development potential.
4. Hedgehog fat can treat severe bloody diarrhea; applied topically, it can treat favus and scabies, and has the effect of killing skin parasites. Soaking the hedgehog's brain, heart, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, and penis in wine and drinking it can refresh the mind, sharpen the eyes, eliminate fatigue, strengthen the body, and fortify the bones.
5. Soaking the hedgehog's brain, heart, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, and penis in wine and drinking it can refresh the mind, sharpen the eyes, eliminate fatigue, strengthen the body, and fortify the bones.
The advantages of hedgehog farming
1. Hedgehogs have strong adaptability: hedgehogs are fond of quiet, afraid of light, and hide by day and come out at night. After artificial training, hedgehogs are docile, slow-moving, and eat very little, needing to be fed only once a day. Hedgehogs are not demanding about their environment and can be raised on balconies, in courtyards, in abandoned houses, or on open ground; it is enough to build a nest for the hedgehog and line it with dry grass, pine needles, or straw.
2. Hedgehogs are simple to raise: hedgehogs are omnivores, and feed sources are wide-ranging. Commonly used animal feeds include insects, aquatic products, earthworms, and various small animals, as well as internal organs, corn, sorghum, barley, wheat, oats, bran, rice bran, melons and fruits, wild vegetables, and wild fruits.
3. Hedgehogs have a high reproduction rate: wild hedgehogs produce 1-2 litters per year, while artificially trained hedgehogs can produce 3-4 litters per year. Hedgehogs generally mate naturally when in heat, and a female hedgehog can give birth to as many as 6~8 young per litter. They have strong disease resistance and are easy to manage. Keeping the temperature above 5℃ can prevent hibernation, and between 25℃~35℃ they can reproduce all year round. Young hedgehogs can be sold at about 3-4 months, and generally can grow to 1.5~2.5 kg.
The economic benefits of hedgehog farming
Each commercial hedgehog weighs about 1 kg (adult hedgehogs can reach more than 2 kg), and the market price is about 75 yuan/kg. Processed hedgehog skin is 90-100 yuan/kg (about 5 skins), and hedgehog meat prices vary by region, from 25-60 yuan per jin, depending on local market acceptance and the scale of farming.
The feed cost of raising one hedgehog is about 15-20 yuan, and the profit per hedgehog is about 60 yuan.
The risks of hedgehog farming
1. Hedgehog farming requires a relatively large site (each breeding pair of hedgehogs needs at least 1.5 sq m of rearing space, and generally a 100 sq m facility housing 30~50 hedgehogs is more suitable), and it needs to be in a relatively quiet place far from human disturbance.
2. Hedgehog farming requires a certain amount of farming experience. Before preparing for large-scale farming, it is best to have some technical accumulation. Do not start large-scale hedgehog farming just after reading a few books and watching farming videos; the chance of success this way is very small, and the chance of losing money is very high.
3. To obtain higher returns from hedgehog farming, it is best to find a buyer for hedgehog skins and to develop a sales market for hedgehog meat.
4. Wild hedgehogs are national second-class protected animals, and farming hedgehogs requires obtaining a "Wild Animal and Its Products Business License"; otherwise, slaughtering or selling them may be illegal.