Detailed Explanation of Key Technical Points for Artificial Snake Breeding
Snakes are animals with very high medicinal value. Catching wild snakes is already prohibited by national law, yet the market demand for meat snakes is astonishingly large. In the Guangdong market alone, the annual demand is conservatively estimated to have reached 7,500 tons. With wild snake resources severely insufficient and prohibited by law, a huge market vacuum for snakes has formed, and to meet market demand, accelerating the promotion of factory farming @#@246@#@ undoubtedly has far-reaching social and economic significance. According to the experience of Dadongyang Snake Research Center, a cobra raised by factory farming methods reaches market weight in 14 months, with a body weight of up to 2.5 jin. Sold at a market price of 80 yuan/jin, it can sell for 200 yuan, while the cost is less than 50 yuan. The net profit per snake can reach 150 yuan. Taking this as an example, self-breeding and self-raising 100,000 cobras can yield a profit of more than 10 million yuan. Therefore, the return on investment for artificial snake farming is extremely high.
I. Artificial Incubation
Artificial incubation of snake eggs is the prerequisite for achieving factory farming. Traditional artificial snake farms that imitate wild ecological environments for raising snakes cannot achieve self-breeding and self-raising of snakes, so they can only rely on breeding snakes captured from the wild for mating and reproduction. Wild snakes basically "live and die on their own" in terms of reproduction, with absolutely no "awareness of eugenics." To achieve "eugenics," the only way is artificial incubation of snake eggs. After years of experimentation, Dadongyang Snake Research Center independently designed a set of incubators, adopting temperature and humidity control technology to control temperature and humidity, keeping the incubator's temperature and humidity within approved ranges. The success rate of artificial snake egg incubation is as high as 95.7%, the highest level in the country.
II. Complete Nutritional Feed
Solving the feed problem for snakes is the key to achieving factory farming. There is little research both domestically and internationally on the nutrition and feed for artificially farmed snakes. No feeding standards for snakes have been established, nor have mixed feeds for snakes been developed. Under traditional farming methods, feeding snakes with live animals such as frogs and eels costs too much. Dadongyang Snake Research Center, targeting the sensitive olfactory characteristics of snakes, conducted repeated screening and finally succeeded in developing a complete nutritional feed suitable for snake tastes, using a material with a special odor combined with other animal and plant protein feeds, minerals, vitamins, etc. Based on different developmental stages of snakes, they formulated four types of synthetic snake feed: juvenile snake type, developmental type, adult snake type, and breeding snake type, completely changing the feeding habit of snakes eating live small animals. This series of feeds has strong palatability and low raw material cost, fundamentally solving the difficult problem of factory farming of snakes, reducing farming costs by 60%-65%.
III. Breaking Hibernation
Breaking the hibernation pattern of snakes is a major breakthrough in the snake farming industry. The success of artificial snake farming depends on the degree of difference between the environmental conditions of the farming facility and the natural ecosystem conditions in which snakes live. Snakes are ectothermic animals, and their activities, predation, reproduction, etc. are all affected by temperature. Temperatures too high or too low are both unfavorable for their activity and growth. Snakes hibernate for as long as 4 months each year. Without breaking hibernation, the market-ready period for snakes is as long as 18 months. The farming cycle is lengthened, and profits are invisibly reduced. In response to this situation, Dadongyang Snake Research Center painstakingly researched and designed a patented heating system that maintains a constant temperature in the snake house, breaks the hibernation pattern of snakes, and achieves no hibernation throughout the year, greatly shortening the farming cycle and advancing the market-ready period for adult snakes from 18 months by 4 months to only 14 months.
IV. Disease Prevention and Control
Solving the problem of snake disease prevention and control is the guarantee for achieving factory farming. Factory farming of snakes, like other farming projects, "focuses on prevention rather than treatment." Dadongyang Snake Research Center, based on the physiological characteristics of snakes and the characteristics of their seasonal diseases, developed various drugs and preventive injections using Chinese herbal medicine to prevent and treat snake molting disease, stomatitis, parasites, skin disease, gastroenteritis, mold spot disease, cholecystitis, and other diseases. The developed Chinese herbal medicines are highly effective in treating parasitic diseases. The farmed snakes rarely carry parasitic diseases, completely eliminating the genetic transmission of disease genes hidden in the bodies of wild snakes from eating live animals, resulting in a survival rate of over 92% for domesticated snakes.
V. Factory Farming
Solving the problem of snake farming space is the top priority for achieving factory farming. Dadongyang Snake Research Center adopts a factory workshop approach, using patented technology (patent applied for) three-dimensional high-density snake boxes to raise snakes. These snake boxes have high density and large capacity, and can raise 50 snakes per cubic meter. Placing these three-dimensional high-density snake boxes indoors, supplementing with complete nutritional feed, and adding targeted Chinese herbal medicines for preventing seasonal diseases and parasitic diseases, overcomes various acute infectious diseases and special parasitic diseases, greatly improving the survival rate of domesticated snakes and truly achieving "factory farming" of snakes.