He Found a Nest of Bamboo Rats on the Mountain, and from Then on Walked the Road to Prosperity
"Oh, that's Li Congbin. His home is in Liuxi Tun, the place they call 'French Village.' I'll take you there." Recently, in Jiangpo Village, Nanping Yao Ethnic Township, Shangsi County, when a reporter asked about someone in the village who had escaped poverty by raising bamboo rats, village Party secretary Li Congdi readily led the reporter over for an interview.
The car climbed upward along the winding concrete road, and before long it reached the "French Village" "hidden" deep in the lush Shiwan Mountains. After getting out of the car, the difference in air pressure inside and outside the vehicle made everyone's ears feel a little uncomfortable. Still, by the time they followed Secretary Li all the way to Li Congbin's home, the ringing in their ears had eased quite a bit.
When the reporter explained the purpose of the visit and said they wanted to interview this capable man who had escaped poverty and become prosperous by raising bamboo rats, the plain-spoken Li Congbin smiled sheepishly. "My bamboo rats are all upstairs." As he spoke, he led everyone into a newly built two-story small house.
Going up to the second floor, the light was dim, and one could faintly see many pools nearly 1 m across partitioned off with boards. "Bamboo rats like dark environments and don't like strong light, so I covered all the windows with things." To let everyone see clearly, Li Congbin pulled back the tarpaulin hanging over one window as he spoke, and the room immediately became much brighter.
The reporter stepped closer and saw that in each pool there were four or five bamboo rats of different sizes moving around, the largest about 1 kg. The reporter soon discovered that the dividers between the pools were actually floor tiles, not wooden boards. Li Congbin explained that using floor tiles as dividers was relatively convenient and simple, and because the surface of floor tiles is smooth, the bamboo rats were not likely to escape, and it was also easy to clean.
In order not to disturb the bamboo rats' normal activity, everyone covered the window and went downstairs. On the way down, the reporter noticed that this new house showed no sign of anyone living in it at all. "The new house was just finished not long ago, and inside it's only been simply tidied up. Now I'm raising more bamboo rats than before, so I moved them here first. We still live in the old house." Downstairs, Li Congbin pointed to the 4 low, old houses beside the new house and said this.
Li Congbin is now 31 years old and has always lived in Liuxi Tun. In earlier years, his family's main source of income was tapping pine resin, and the income was not high, only enough to make a living, making them a poor household in the village. Once, while he was on the mountain tapping pine resin, he found a nest of bamboo rats, so he brought them home to raise, just treating it as a hobby. Li Congbin quickly discovered that bamboo rats were actually very easy to raise, did not require much effort, and could be sold for money, so he began letting the bamboo rats breed and increasing the number he raised. In the past two years, he has put his main energy into bamboo rat farming. "The bamboo rats I raise all eat cassava stalks, corn, and bamboo. They can grow about two jin a year, and generally they have to be raised to this size before they are sold." Li Congbin said, "People have approached me before, wanting to work with me in farming, but I didn't agree. What they feed them is commercial feed, and in three months they can produce a 3-jin bamboo rat. I think bamboo rats raised that way are no good, and I insist on my own way of raising them."
As for how the bamboo rats he raises are sold, Li Congbin said that was not a problem, because others all came to his door to buy them, and he had never taken them out to sell. "The bamboo rats I raise generally sell for more than 50 yuan a jin. Right now there are about 300 on hand. The yearly income from raising bamboo rats is definitely better than tapping pine resin." He told the reporter, "Now two people in our village have already started raising them along with me."
Under Li Congbin's careful breeding, the number of bamboo rats increased every year, and it also brought new changes to his originally poor family: they built a new house, added new home appliances, and shook off the label of poor household. As for his plans for the future, Li Congbin said he wants to gradually expand the farming site, from the current farming area of less than 100 sq m to 500 sq m, and also build a new house for the bamboo rats to live in.