Porcupine farming becomes a new path for farmers to get rich

In 2014, Yang Ruichao, who owned two excavators in Pingzhang Group, Dongbao Village, Jinping Town, Jingdong County, Yunnan Province, learned from CCTV's "Road to Wealth" program about a farmer in another province who became rich by raising porcupines. In October of the same year, he made a special trip to the porcupine breeding bases in Zhenyuan and Mojiang counties for study and investigation, and firmed up his idea of abandoning his old trade to raise porcupines. He went home and sold one excavator, built a porcupine pen of more than 1,000 sq m, and in March 2015 purchased 110 groups, 330 head of porcupine breeding stock, with a total investment of more than 1.2 million yuan, officially switching careers to porcupine farming.

Walking into Yang Ruichao's porcupine pens, the more than 100 pens are almost all occupied - some hold 3 porcupines per pen, some have 1 porcupine to itself, and some have a mother and her young together in one pen. Porcupines are polygamous, so pens with 3 porcupines hold 1 male and 2 females. After a year of farming, Yang Ruichao's porcupines have produced 100 offspring, and some porcupines are still waiting to give birth. According to Yang Ruichao, during his time in Zhenyuan learning to raise porcupines, he bought breeding stock from a local porcupine boss and signed a buyback contract with him at 150 yuan per kg; the contract is still valid and will change in the future with market price fluctuations. Each commercial porcupine can grow to 14 to 16 kg, and calculated at 150 yuan per kg, one porcupine can sell for about 2,200 yuan, with an average feed cost of about 200 yuan per porcupine per year, yielding a net profit of 2,000 yuan. He does not currently plan to sell commercial porcupines, but some breeding stock is ready for sale. Yang Ruichao's father explained that porcupine farming is very simple: get up early every day and clean the pens, feed some bananas and vegetables in the morning, and feed a little corn in the afternoon; the corn just needs to be rinsed with clean water and soaked briefly. Porcupines do not eat much, and it is not as troublesome and tiring as raising cattle or sheep.

Now, Yang Ruichao is encouraging the surrounding people to raise porcupines together, and has currently established the Jinruichang Porcupine Farming Cooperative, developing 6 member households. He plans to develop more farming households to join the cooperative and form large-scale farming; he wants to build a porcupine meat deep-processing factory to make the porcupine farming industry bigger and stronger.