Ecological soft-shelled turtles successfully bred after five years of hard guarding by the edge of Jiuqing Pond
Farmed soft-shelled turtles take five years to produce, a farming method that in many people's eyes seems hardly worth the effort. Yet Chen Jianhua spent five years squatting by the pond, keeping company with a yellow dog and the green mountains, and cultivated soft-shelled turtles in a semi-wild state.
Raising soft-shelled turtles: hitting a wall but never turning back
When talking about how he started farming soft-shelled turtles, the honest Chen Jianhua kept saying it was by chance. In 2012, he contracted Jiuqing Pond in Chal u Town and planned to develop a farm resort around it, but it was stopped for some reason. “I had already invested a lot of money in planning and applications, and giving up midway seemed a pity, so I thought about doing some farming in Jiuqing Pond to cut my losses.” He told the reporter that since he had previously been in the furniture dealership business and now wanted to go into farming, the two were completely unrelated, and as soon as he voiced the idea, relatives and friends opposed it.
However, Chen Jianhua, who has always been a man of ideas, did not give up. He began watching all kinds of agricultural and economic programs, hoping to find a new path in farming. One day, a program reporting on a soft-shelled turtle breeding base in Wenling, Taizhou, sparked his interest. Thinking that Jiuqing Pond was a natural pond with unpolluted water quality and might be suitable for raising soft-shelled turtles, Chen Jianhua decided to go for an on-site inspection.
After arriving at the soft-shelled turtle base in Wenling, he started with basic work such as feeding and changing the pond water, and studied here for a full two months in the scorching heat. Afterwards, he invited experts from the breeding base to inspect Jiuqing Pond and assess whether the water quality and environment were suitable for soft-shelled turtle growth. “There is no pollution nearby, and with the lush lotus leaves in the lake, it is still very suitable for raising soft-shelled turtles.” The experts' words put his mind at ease.
With the “rumbling” of the excavator, Chen Jianhua's breeding base began construction. The huge investment was unexpected. For the 180-mu pond, just digging the pond and laying nets used up more than 600,000 in savings, and having no money to buy soft-shelled turtle fry left him in a predicament. At this point, someone extended an olive branch to him, willing to pay to subcontract the pond. But Chen Jianhua was unmoved. He borrowed money from relatives everywhere, determined to see his farming business through to the end. One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand…… After raising money to buy 40,000 soft-shelled turtle fry, he truly did not have a single cent left, and could not even squeeze out the most essential money for feed!
“Since there is no money to buy feed, I might as well adopt a human-stocked, nature-raised soft-shelled turtle farming model.” Chen Jianhua went all in. Jiuqing Pond grows a large amount of lotus, and the pond bottom has deep silt, which provides favorable growing conditions for snails, algae and so on, and also provides abundant food for the soft-shelled turtles. It was just that without artificial feeding, the soft-shelled turtles would grow much more slowly. Others could produce in two years, but he had to wait 4-5 years.
Five years of guarding the pond finally did not fail the years
Everything was ready except the waiting, but this process was extremely difficult and long. In the first year of farming, he moved alone into a small thatched hut by the pond with no water or electricity. In front of the hut was a vast lake, and behind it were all green mountains and graves. In the silent night, only a yellow dog kept him company. On ordinary days, he patrolled the lakeside to guard that pond of “treasure.” And every time wind and rain came, it was sure to be a sleepless time for him. Once a typhoon struck, and the continuous rain made the water level in the pond rise higher and higher. It looked about to overflow. At this time, if you put your hand into the pond, you could see small soft-shelled turtle fry climbing up along your arm. They were all waiting for the water to overflow the pond bank and begin a “great escape.” Chen Jianhua was frantic with anxiety, but facing the 180-mu pond, he was helpless. In his heart, he had already prepared for the worst! Fortunately, when the pond water was only a few centimeters from the pond bank, the rain stopped, and this honest man was so moved that he cried. During the period of guarding the pond, he was found to have kidney stones and often rolled on the ground in pain. The doctor required him to be hospitalized, but his first reaction was, if I leave, who will guard the soft-shelled turtles in the pond? He insisted on not being hospitalized and only agreed to receive intravenous drips at a clinic closer to the soft-shelled turtle base.
In five years, the soft-shelled turtle base had no income, but annual maintenance costs still took 40,000-50,000 yuan, so he tried every means to earn money to patch this big hole. In order to sell lotus seed pods for some extra income, one time he braved the scorching sun, punted a small bamboo raft to the middle of the lake to pick lotus seed pods, and without drinking a single sip of water along the way, unexpectedly suffered heatstroke and nearly collapsed into the pond; in order to save living expenses, for a period of time he relied only on picking lotus seeds as food to stave off hunger.
Time does not fail the dedicated, and Chen Jianhua's semi-wild soft-shelled turtles finally reached the harvest period. His soft-shelled turtles are not large, but their meat is delicious and draws endless praise. This is mainly due to the low stocking density. While satisfying their prey intake, they have more space to increase activity and reduce disease incidence. In addition, his female soft-shelled turtles still have eggs in their bellies, which is very rare on the market. “Some farmers are eager for quick success and sell within two years in order to recoup funds as soon as possible. Only soft-shelled turtles raised for four or five years reach sexual maturity and can lay eggs.” Chen Jianhua said that his soft-shelled turtles are almost comparable to wild soft-shelled turtles. Now he has sent the soft-shelled turtles to professional institutions to test protein content, and registered a brand, striving to do a good job in promotion and sell high-quality ecological soft-shelled turtles out of Ninghai.