Raising rabbits earns 200,000 yuan a year, a post-80s migrant worker returns home to start a business
From the initial 20 to a current stock of more than 1,000; from pet rex rabbits kept mainly for fun to "wealth-bringing rabbits" that "produce" nearly 10,000 yuan a month, in just 6 short years, rabbits have not only brought Zhang Lei endless joy, but also unexpected wealth.
Recently, while interviewing in Yuanzhai Township, Zhengyang County, the author met Zhang Lei, a young man born in the 1980s, and thus learned about his road to prosperity.
Zhang Lei is a grassroots militia member from Yuanzhai Village in Yuanzhai Township. After graduating from high school, he went to the south to work, and eventually became a feeder at a large rabbit farm in Jiangsu, and it was precisely this working life at the rabbit farm that became an important turning point in his life.
According to Zhang Lei, the work at the rabbit farm was not easy, but the furry rex rabbits brought him joy. He devoted all his energy to the work and worked hard to study rabbit-raising knowledge, and soon mastered scientific methods for raising rex rabbits. Three years later, Zhang Lei returned to his hometown, used the money he had earned working to buy 20 fine-breed rex rabbits, and set up 20 rabbit cages, beginning to raise them in his own yard. "These 20 little rabbits are my treasures. I watch over them all day long, afraid that something might happen to the 'baby rabbits.'"
But fortune is fickle. In March 2009, a rabbit epidemic caused 50 of his 80-plus newborn "baby rabbits" to die at once. Zhang Lei felt terrible, could not eat, could not sleep, and within a few days had lost a lot of weight. He used all the knowledge he had learned, but still could not cure the "baby rabbits'" illness. In order to find out the cause, he took the dead "baby rabbits" to a professional livestock breeding training class. After dissection, it was found that the rabbits had been infected with viral hemorrhagic disease, and the main reason was that Zhang Lei had neglected to strengthen immunization.
Where you fall, get up from there. Zhang Lei learned the lesson from his first failure in raising rabbits. He gathered the 30 surviving young rex rabbits, built 30 standardized rabbit sheds, hired relevant experts as "rabbit-raising consultants," regularly checked the "baby rabbits'" health, and promptly prevented various diseases. He paid attention to the feeding and management of fine-breed female rabbits, ensuring technical guidance for rex rabbits before, during and after kindling... Hard work pays off. After a period of busy work, the 30 rex rabbits Zhang Lei raised were ready for market, and for this he made a net profit of more than 1,000 yuan.
In 2013, through a 100,000 yuan loan to support migrant workers returning home to start businesses, Zhang Lei built 5 standard rabbit sheds on 3 mu of his own land, introduced 100 fine rex rabbit breeds, and started large-scale fine-breed rex rabbit breeding, maintaining a year-round stock of 1,000 commercial rex rabbits in continuous cycle sales without interruption. Afterwards, he invested another 3,000 yuan to buy feed-processing machinery and mixed pellet feed himself, greatly reducing production costs. In order to improve breeding efficiency, he also combined the professional knowledge he had learned, used the breeding farm as a test base, devoted himself to research, and summarized the "three dos and three don'ts" rabbit feeding method. Because of scientific feeding and careful care, the rex rabbits he raised were large and heavy, had many offspring, dense down, smooth fur, and good-looking coat color, and were deeply favored by customers. Today, Zhang Lei sells 2,000 commercial rabbits a year, with annual income of more than 200,000 yuan, and is a well-known rex rabbit-raising expert in the whole county.
"In farming, going it alone does not work; only with scale is there influence." Zhang Lei said that in order to expand scale and lead everyone to prosperity together, in 2015 he founded the Zhengyang County Yuxin Rex Rabbit Fine-Breed Breeding Base, and applied to register and establish the Zhengyang County Yuxin Rex Rabbit Breeding Professional Cooperative, guiding 156 nearby militia households to set up rex rabbit farms, while successfully using the "cooperative + base + farmers" business model to realize the industrialization of rex rabbit breeding. A few days ago, when Wu Juan, Party secretary of Yuanzhai Township, Zhengyang County, inspected the Yuxin Rex Rabbit Fine-Breed Breeding Base founded by Zhang Lei, she praised it, saying: "Raise a thousand rabbits at home, and you have a golden treasury for prosperity. Zhang Lei's return home to start a business has found for the villagers a good path to shake off poverty and become rich through industry."