Yuncheng man makes his fortune by entering the breeding industry in two years

Yellow River News Network Yuncheng Channel reportYang Nianjun entered the breeding industry purely by accident. And the achievements he made in just over two years even made experts from the province give a thumbs-up.

In March 2015, Yang Nianjun went to Yongji to attend a wedding banquet, where he met the general manager of Shanxi Changrong Agricultural Science and Technology Development Company and learned that Shanxi Changrong Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd. is a circular agriculture company integrating planting, breeding and seed stock improvement, mainly promoting Canadian-line original breeding pigs and adopting a new "company + family farm" model, which had already reached a certain scale locally. Although breeding had absolutely nothing to do with Yang Nianjun's own business, out of curiosity he still listened carefully to his friend's introduction. Unexpectedly, on the third day after he returned, technicians from Changrong came to his door, offering design plans, market analysis and technical guidance. Yang Nianjun accepted the materials but did not agree right away. More than two months later, he took his older cousin with him to visit Changrong Company on site.

Changrong's breeding model opened Yang Nianjun's eyes. The standard sealed breeding pig barns, fully automatic environmental control, temperature control, feeding, watering, fixed breeding pens and nursery pens, and the integrated circular ecological development of farming and breeding were completely different from the situation of local small pig farms. He immediately made up his mind to establish the Zhuoyue Breeding and Planting Professional Cooperative and develop the breeding business. With no land, he cleared his family's old grave plot north of the village, invested more than 1 million yuan, and turned that large stretch of barren gully into terraced fields. With no technology, he invited experts from Changrong Company to carry out overall planning.

In June 2015, construction of the pig farm started smoothly. The newly built breeding pig farm covers more than 10 mu, of which just over 1 mu is used for pig barns, while the rest was all landscaped to high standards. In just over a year, he planted grapes, fruit trees and vegetables on the farm, and along both sides of the roads he planted holly, cedar, Chinese rose and crape myrtle. Once the pig barns were built, Yang Nianjun ordered 160 Canadian-line sows in one go, each weighing more than 200 jin. He also sent two employees to Changrong Company in advance for study and training, and hired an on-site technician for guidance. Looking at the big sows in the pens, sturdy as little cows, Yang Nianjun felt delighted. Every day he followed the technician to observe, feed and carry out disease prevention, standing for hours at a time in the pig barn.

When the first batch of piglets was born, the survival rate reached 99%, and Yang Nianjun could not have been happier. Every day he cared for these piglets as carefully as if he were looking after children, but unexpectedly, problems arose ten days after the piglets were weaned. During those two days, the on-site technician had gone home for something, and Yang Nianjun fed the pigs as usual. He found that more than 100 piglets in the pen ate but did not gain weight, had bristling hair, and showed symptoms of diarrhea. He immediately asked the technician for help. The technician rushed over to deal with the situation and found that this batch of piglets had all suffered from mycotoxin poisoning and urgently needed traditional Chinese medicine to detoxify. Without a second thought, he bought more than 20,000 yuan worth of medicine, but still more than 100 piglets could not be saved, with losses of nearly 100,000 yuan. A later investigation showed that the cause was mold contamination from poor storage of his own feed. During that period, Yang Nianjun stayed at the pig farm without leaving for a moment, could not sleep night after night, and his hair turned much grayer all at once. Through this incident, he gained one lesson: before every feeding, he would first smell the feed, and sometimes even put it in his mouth to taste it, and only after confirming there was no off odor would he feed it with peace of mind.

The Zhuoyue farm is not small in scale, but it has only four workers. At first, because of a lack of experience, the four of them were busy and flustered all day long. After a period of exploration, Yang Nianjun gradually mastered the patterns of pig raising and decided to implement refined management. Based on the actual condition of the sows, he divided them into five groups, each with 25 to 30 sows, basically achieving estrus and conception at the same time and farrowing in the same period. In this way, gaps could be opened in between to ensure the workers could rotate shifts and rest normally. Whenever it was the sows' farrowing period, no matter how busy he was, he would rush to the pig barn at night to be on duty and deliver the piglets. He had the technician take the first half of the night, while he took the hardest second half. For piglets born in normal delivery, he carefully carried them into the nursery pens. When encountering sows with difficult labor, he even had to assist the delivery himself. After every duty shift, he was nearly falling apart, and his clothes were full of the smell of blood.

Thanks to careful management and protection, on his pig farm all 21-day-old piglets reached more than 7 kg, with an average of 12.6 per litter and a maximum of 13. All piglets were sold by order to Yongji, Jishan, Xinjiang, Wanrong, Linyi and other places, and more than 3,000 piglets have been marketed so far. In his daily work, he also summed up a set of "pig-raising principles": when a sow is farrowing, one must be present to "attend" to her and isolate the piglets at any time to avoid injury by the sow; the starter feed after seven days must be high-quality, high-standard feed and must not be replaced with inferior goods; and before feeding, one must observe carefully and strictly prevent feed from becoming moldy.

On May 12, 2017, at the Shanxi Province Breeding Industry Development Summit Forum held in Yuncheng, after hearing his introduction, experts from the Shanxi Provincial Improvement Station gave repeated thumbs-ups and praised him for playing an exemplary role for breeders across the province.

Next, Yang Nianjun has new plans. In light of the national market situation, he is preparing to introduce some Guanzhong donkeys for raising, further expand the scale of production, and truly let breeding bring prosperity to the people. (Wu Xiaozheng)