Yang Daozhong of Jiuwanxi Makes a Fortune Raising Sheep by Living Off the Mountain

Yang Daozhong, a 44-year-old villager of Huaishuping, started from nothing. When he talks about his entrepreneurial journey, he speaks endlessly, full of both hardship and joy. Before 2011, he worked in places like Dangyang and Guizhou, earning more than 20,000 yuan. In the second half of 2012, he returned home to start a business because he needed to care for his elderly parents and a child about to start school. With the more than 20,000 yuan he had earned from working, he bought 30 local goats, and he and his wife threw themselves into a booming sheep-raising venture. He thought the days of poverty were gone forever.

But fate had other plans. In the spring of 2013, as all things were coming back to life, a ewe he had recently bought let out a few screams, thrashed around, kicked its legs a few times, and stopped breathing. Yang Daozhong and his wife were still puzzling over it when the second and third ewes followed in quick succession. In two days, 18 had died, leaving only 12 ewes. Looking at the 18 dead breeding sheep, the couple wanted to cry but had no tears. Persist or give up? The stubborn Yang Daozhong comforted his wife: "Starting a business is never smooth sailing. Losing so many sheep must be because we lack experience. It's either an infectious disease or poisoning. Let's do a necropsy and see, then go consult a veterinarian. We'll treat the problem accordingly, borrow money to buy new ewes, and revive our sheep-raising venture." The necropsy diagnosis showed that the goats had contracted an infectious disease because vaccination had not been done properly.

Yang Daozhong and his wife borrowed 12,000 yuan from relatives and friends and bought 19 more local female goats. Their booming sheep-raising venture began again.

Do the sheep now get infectious diseases? Yang Daozhong said: "I'm an expert now. Not only do I do routine vaccinations, I can even perform surgery. The day before yesterday, a ewe had a difficult birth and couldn't deliver the lamb after a whole day. I immediately decided to do a C-section, made a four-cun-long cut in the mother's belly, took out the lamb that had died in the womb, and immediately gave the ewe an injection to reduce inflammation. Today the ewe has already started eating grass." We went to the sheep pen to look, and sure enough, a ewe that had undergone a C-section was eating grass. According to Yang Daozhong, in recent years, because vaccinations were timely, the goats had not contracted infectious diseases and the flock had grown rapidly. In just over three years, he had raised more than 250 head in total. In 2015, he sold more than 70 head and earned more than 60,000 yuan. In 2016, he can reach more than 200 goats, and selling 80 is no problem.

"With such harsh conditions, why not move down the mountain? Living on this hilltop with no road access, there's simply no prospect for development." Before I could finish, Yang Daozhong flatly rejected the idea: "This used to be a village; now only 18 people live here year-round. Thousands of mu of land have all gone wild, which is perfect for raising sheep. There are yellow muntjacs, black muntjacs, river deer, wild sheep, wild rabbits, hog badgers, wild boars, bees and other wild animals here. Last year I sold more than 8,000 yuan worth of honey alone. There are also valuable medicinal herbs like gastrodia, yellow ginger, saposhnikovia, peucedanum, bletilla, fleeceflower root, Paris polyphylla, dendrobium, and Japanese knotweed. Last year I sold more than 6,000 yuan worth of Japanese knotweed alone."

"There's one thing that's really strange. One day I saw a black muntjac weighing about 80 jin mating with a ewe, and that ewe indeed gave birth to a black-furred female lamb. This ewe is different from the others: first, her fur is jet black; second, she is especially agile and good at running; third, she is especially hard to get pregnant. It's been two years, and this time she has just conceived. I really want to study this to see if it's the offspring of that black muntjac. I have already established the Laoliu Goat Breeding Family Farm. Later, I plan to study crossbreeding between wild sheep, muntjacs and goats. If it works, the meat will be better and the market will be better too."

"How do you deal with all this sheep manure?" Yang Daozhong said: "There's a way. I'm about to plant two mu of Gleditsia sinensis, some vegetables, and also 3 mu of peanuts. Peanut vines are good for feeding the lambs in winter. I use all the sheep manure as fertilizer. Sheep manure is a natural organic fertilizer, so why go down the mountain to buy chemical fertilizer?"

Can you eat all the vegetables you grow? Yang Daozhong said: "It doesn't matter if we can't finish them. Maybe you won't believe it, but in this godforsaken place of mine, people actually come to visit. Last year three groups came. The biggest... the largest group had 35 people. I cooked, and I didn't charge, but the tourists insisted on paying 30 yuan each. Hahaha, I even earned more than 2,000 yuan just from tourism. I plan to clean up the indoor and outdoor areas and build a few all-wood stilted houses against the mountain. It will be more comfortable when tourists come, and when there are none, I can use them myself or for guests."

Speaking of his biggest wish for 2016, he said: going up the mountain takes only about 40 minutes, and going down is faster. I want to build a 1.5-meter-wide safe footpath, and even more, I want to get a road built.