Hua Jinling Leads the Masses in Mengcheng County to Get Rich by Raising Sheep

By the end of 2015, Mengcheng County in Anhui Province had 1,560 large-scale sheep farms (households), a year-on-year increase of 18.2%, and in particular, standardized large-scale sheep-raising technology had been generally improved. These achievements were attributable to a very important factor: the work of Hua Jinling, a "Three Regions" science and technology worker, in promoting standardized large-scale sheep-raising technology in Mengcheng County.

Hua Jinling, female, born in 1974, is an associate professor and laboratory director at the College of Animal Science, Anhui Science and Technology University, and her "Three Regions" science and technology service site is "Mengcheng County Shuangchun Goat Farm". In 2015, she carried out "Three Regions" science and technology work in Mengcheng County for 103 days, making outstanding contributions to the development of the sheep industry in Mengcheng County.

Hua Jinling said: "Although I am contracted to one sheep farm, I should serve the whole county; if I want to serve the contracted farm well, I must understand more sheep farms."

Therefore, based on Mengcheng County Shuangchun Goat Farm, she selected goat farms such as Shuangjian Town Hengxiang Goat Breeding Professional Cooperative, Banqiao Town Zhangyun Goat Breeding Professional Cooperative, Tancheng Town Shenlin Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., Maji Town Hongqiang Family Farm, and Sanyi Town Lizhe Family Farm as technology radiation points, forming a comprehensive goat standardized large-scale breeding technology radiation network.

In order to make the formulated technical plans better suited to goat farms and more scientific, representative and targeted, Hua Jinling collected concentrate and roughage feed from all the sheep farms in the radiation network and sent them to the laboratory of the College of Animal Science, Anhui Science and Technology University for testing and identification, fully understanding the forage resources and nutritional components of Mengcheng County. She also traveled to goat farms and households throughout the county to understand existing problems, analyze potential risks, and develop the best breeding plans.

Based on the first-hand data she obtained and the actual needs of standardized large-scale sheep raising, Hua Jinling put forward technical popularization and technical guidance plans covering many aspects, including sheep farm site selection and construction, goat nutritional matching and feed composition, stage-specific nutritional supply for goats, and stage-specific management of goats, forming multiple enterprise technical standards and promoting their application.

Using the contracted sheep farm and technology radiation points as training bases, Hua Jinling held 11 technical training sessions for local animal husbandry and veterinary stations and goat farms (households), training more than 1,150 technical personnel person-times, solving more than 50 breeding technical problems on site, and reducing breeding losses by more than 1.6 million yuan. This powerfully promoted the development of the standardized large-scale sheep-raising industry and the application and popularization of technology in Mengcheng County.

Under Hua Jinling's careful guidance and selfless help, the degree of standardization and breeding level of the sheep farms at each point were significantly improved.

First, they focused on breed selection. At present, most are high-quality Anhui white goats, Boer goat crossbreeds (selected and bred) with excellent production performance, and Hu sheep suitable for barn feeding. Second, they focused on combination breeding. Pure breeding, crossbreeding, post-crossbreeding selection, and fattening. Third, they focused on scientific breeding. They not only selected high-quality concentrate and roughage feed and paid attention to diversification, nutritional balance, and rational daily rations, but also broadly developed feed sources, made full use of local resources, and reduced costs while increasing efficiency, such as planting forage grass, strengthening straw silage and yellow silage, and timely using peanut vines, sweet potato vines and other green crop stalks and stems. Fourth, they focused on disease prevention and control. The establishment, improvement and implementation of epidemic prevention and disinfection systems, the perfection of facilities and equipment, and the scientific treatment of diseases. Fifth, they focused on construction standards and breeding norms. They strengthened infrastructure construction, carried out high-bed sheep raising, high-pressure point-flushing hygienic sheep raising, and so on, continuously raising breeding standards, expanding breeding scale, and achieving standardized production.

By the end of 2015, Mengcheng County Shuangchun Goat Farm had more than 1,200 goats on hand, with more than 2,000 fattening sheep sold annually and sales revenue of more than 1.5 million yuan. It basically met the overall requirements of improved goat breeds, facility-based breeding, standardized production, institutionalized epidemic prevention, and harmless treatment of manure. The goat survival rate was above 98.5%. Several other sheep farms in the network had also reached or basically reached the above standard requirements, and at the same time radiated to drive more than 520 surrounding sheep farms and households to carry out standardized large-scale breeding, achieving remarkable results.

Hua Jinling's "Three Regions" science and technology work won the sincere approval of the agriculture and animal husbandry departments of Mengcheng County and the heartfelt praise of the vast number of breeding personnel, and at the same time boosted the rapid development of the sheep industry in Mengcheng County. She used science and technology to give wings to the development of the sheep industry in Mengcheng County.