College graduate becomes a pig farmer, tastes the sweetness of pig farming
"Last year I sold more than 150 fattened pigs, plus some piglets, and made over 300,000 yuan in total." Recently, Yang Jianghu said with a beaming smile.
Yang Jianghu is a post-90s college graduate from Lengjinxi Village, Longhe Town, Fengdu County. After graduating from Southwest Agricultural University in 2014, in order to realize his dream of entrepreneurship, he gave up the opportunity to work and live in the city and resolutely chose to return to his hometown, combining theory with practice and beginning his own entrepreneurial journey.
Recently, when the reporter arrived at Yang Jianghu's pig farm in Lengjinxi Village, Longhe Town, they saw Yang Jianghu, 23 years old this year, wearing a pair of framed glasses, a white striped T-shirt and casual jeans, still seeming to carry a student air about him.
"Luoluoluo..." Inside the pig farm, Yang Jianghu called softly, and a group of lively piglets rushed out in full force. He scattered a basket of sweet potatoes on the ground, and the piglets swarmed over, scrambling for the food. Watching his "treasures" forage and play, Yang Jianghu's face revealed a happy smile, and he opened up like counting his family treasures.
When talking about his experience and the original intention of his entrepreneurship, Yang Jianghu said that after graduating from Southwest Agricultural University in 2014 with a major in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, he had also thought, like other classmates, of taking civil service and public institution exams, hoping to gain a firm foothold in the city. On the registration day, he and his friends queued for several hours and barely managed to register at the registration desk. When the exam results came out, he found his score was not enough. Talking about the experience of applying for a work unit had a huge impact on Yang Jianghu, who had just left school. Thousands upon thousands of people applied for a very small number of positions, and the difficulty was even greater than getting into university.
"I majored in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. Finding a job is not easy now, so returning home to start a business is a relatively good choice," Yang Jianghu said. Because his major was relatively unpopular, finding a good job was difficult, and coupled with the fact that he had had a dream of entrepreneurship since childhood, he thought of applying what he had learned and thus conceived the idea of returning home to raise pigs and become wealthy. "Although I am a graduate in animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, I had far more theory than practice," Yang Jianghu said, shaking his head. During university, in order to accumulate more practical experience, he spent more than a year doing internships at large pig farms in Hechuan, Yongchuan, Jiangjin and other places, effectively combining theory with practice, continuously learning and summarizing many pig-raising methods.
After graduation, after several rounds of deliberation, Yang Jianghu told his parents about his idea and gained their support. Yang Jianghu told the reporter that his parents had been in the scrap recycling business in Nanping, Chongqing, for ten years, missed their hometown very much, and also wanted to return home to live. Soon, his father Yang Genming took out 300,000 yuan in savings as his son's startup capital. At present, father and son run the pig farm together.
"Installing running water pipes, building pig troughs, repairing the water tank... these were all done by my father and me personally," Yang Jianghu said, pointing to the water tank beside him. After returning home, he simply converted an old, dilapidated house in his hometown into a pigpen, bought 10 sows, 1 breeding boar and a Changan vehicle, then enclosed 30 mu of wasteland and planted forage grass, vigorously building a live pig breeding farm.
"At present, there are more than 100 live pigs in the pig farm, including 15 sows, 1 breeding boar, and the rest are piglets," Yang Jianghu said. These piglets are very mischievous and strong, and the iron railings on the pigpens have been pushed crooked. The most troublesome thing is putting "earrings" on the piglets, but fortunately with his father's help, the pig farm has always gone smoothly.
In addition, the mustard greens, sweet potato vines and other things fed to the pigs are all original ecological foods, and the formulated feed contains no additives, so the quality of the live pigs is very good. Yang Jianghu said his live pigs focus on being "original ecological." In order to increase the piglets' amount of exercise, he also made a small playground in the pigpen and drives them to run every day. The pigs currently in the pig farm have all been pre-ordered by friends and merchants.
"It is expected that 300 to 400 fattened pigs will be sent to market this year, with a profit of more than 600,000 yuan." Calculating this year's economic accounts, Yang Jianghu smiled so widely that he could not close his mouth.
"I adopt a crossbreeding method for live pigs to increase yield and quality. The current record is 24 piglets in one litter," Yang Jianghu said when talking about innovative pig breeding methods.
Yang Jianghu introduced that he first crossed first-generation Taihu pigs with Landrace pigs to produce black and white piglets, then kept the white live pigs and crossed them with Duroc breed pigs, producing live pigs in three colors: black, white and brown. "This method not only has high yield but also good meat quality. In particular, the white live pigs sell especially well on the market and are welcomed by pig dealers," he told the reporter with a smile.