A man in his sixties raises fierce wild boars, and the scale is astonishing
When people mention wild boars, most would think of remote mountains and wilderness, but in Rong'an County there is a 63-year-old man who started raising wild boars in a courtyard on the outskirts of the county town, and in just 8 years, he grew his operation from only 1 young male boar to 80 wild boars!
Raising wild boars is already incredible enough, and expanding to such a scale is even more astonishing. How did this elderly man do it?
On the outskirts of the Hexi urban area of Rong'an County, there is a courtyard of about 500-plus sq m. The owner is Wei Yifan, 63 years old this year. Fifteen years ago, after retiring early, Wei Yifan devoted himself to finding some "quick-return" specialty breeding projects. After trying many projects, one day in 2007, a piece of news he happened to hear tied him forever to wild boar farming. Wei Yifan said that at the time he heard that a farmer in the local Dongqi Township had trapped a wild boar weighing more than 20 jin and was preparing to sell it at a high price. Wei Yifan immediately rushed there and found that what had been captured was a male wild boar full of wild nature, and that there was not a single injury on its body, making it very suitable as a breeding boar for expansion. Wei Yifan said he had previously followed wild boar farming through magazines and books, and knew that wild boar meat is a high-protein, low-fat meat product that is very popular in the market, and that wild boars have strong disease resistance and low feeding costs, so he was very optimistic about its prospects. Wei Yifan had long paid attention to this specialty breeding project, but had been frustrated by never finding a good wild boar breeding stock. Now that he had suddenly found a healthy male wild boar without a scratch, the idea of using it for artificial breeding to develop large-scale wild boar farming naturally came to him. After some bargaining, Old Wei took out 800 yuan and brought this unscathed male wild boar home. At the same time, he bought a female piglet at the market, then rented an abandoned courtyard near his home and formally began his wild boar farming venture.
Wei Yifan said that after bringing this male wild boar home, he focused all his energy on how to raise wild boars well. From morning till night he observed the wild boar's habits and tried every way to provide it with the wild vegetable feed it liked. After caring for it like a treasure for more than 1 year, this wild boar grew to more than 80 jin and was already able to mate. Wei Yifan began to carry out his wild boar expansion plan. What he did not expect was that this male wild boar's first mating with a domestic pig succeeded smoothly. Winning on the first try, Wei Yifan's confidence greatly increased!
Half a year later, the first batch of 8 hybrid wild piglets (first-generation crosses refer to breeding boars and sows) was successfully born. What excited Wei Yifan endlessly was that these first-generation hybrid wild boars completely inherited wild genes in appearance and habits, and there was no need to care for them like domesticated piglets with "cold protection in winter and heat relief in summer." Moreover, their diet was based entirely on raw wild feed such as wild vegetables, and the breeding cost was less than one-half that of ordinary domestic pigs. In order to make these piglets grow stronger, besides raising them in a completely closed free-range way, Wei Yifan also catered to these wild boars' habits by feeding them plant-based raw materials throughout their growth from small to large, letting these piglets grow as much as possible in a simulated wild environment and preserving their wild habits to the greatest extent. At the same time, Wei Yifan selected the piglets with the strongest wild nature and the best body shape as the new generation of breeding stock to raise, and then carried out hybrid expansion again.
Following this purification and expansion plan, by 2009 Wei Yifan had successfully expanded his wild boar farming scale to more than 20. That same year, many friends who had long been eyeing these wild boars came to his door one after another and snapped up more than 10 adult wild boars at high prices, letting Wei Yifan taste no small sweetness of reward without even leaving home. From then on, Wei Yifan focused even more on his wild boar farming business.
Over 8 years, Wei Yifan always adhered to his green farming philosophy, insisting on developing wild boar farming through purification and expansion, closed free-range raising, and raw feed. He quickly expanded and stabilized his farming scale at around 80 head. These artificially raised wild boars, fully comparable to original wild boars, also became increasingly famous through word of mouth among regular customers, and at one point showed a sales momentum of demand exceeding supply, allowing Wei Yifan, amid excitement, to once again see the dawn of broadening his entrepreneurial path. He said that due to site limitations, he had never been able to expand his wild boar farming scale. Now that targeted poverty alleviation is being carried out nationwide, he wants to move his wild boar farming specialty industry to the countryside. While expanding the farming scale, he wants to use his own practical actions to influence and lead local farmers to develop this specialty industry together. While achieving his goal of making this specialty industry bigger and stronger, he also wants more and more farmers to use this specialty industry platform to escape poverty and become wealthy as soon as possible.
(Correspondent: Wei Lianbing Editor: Chen Sisi)