Shi Jinglei's Guide to Getting Rich by Raising Donkeys: Leading Villagers onto the Road to Moderate Prosperity Through Meat Donkey Farming
As the saying goes, "Dragon meat in heaven, donkey meat on earth." A donkey is a treasure from head to tail. Donkeys get sick rarely and are easy to raise. Shi Jinglei, a villager from Quyang County, found his way to prosperity by raising meat donkeys.
On April 1, this writer visited a breeding farm in Quyang County and saw plump, sturdy donkeys grazing leisurely. The donkeys were endearingly naive, their playful black eyes darting this way and that, so cute they were as lovable as little deer.
"Donkeys are especially easy to raise. They eat grass three times a day. In February, we bought more than 100 meat donkeys. After a month of feeding, they had all gained more than 50 jin. At this rate, they can be sent to market in another 6 months," Shi Jinglei, the farm manager who was busy working alongside his workers, told this writer.
In 2015, already a father of two children, he felt he could not live his whole life like this. After much thought, he resolutely decided to start a business in his hometown. He wanted to use solid action to build a real career in the countryside. Xixingshu Village is a plains village that relies mainly on farming. There was not a single village-run enterprise in the village, and for many years the villagers had all gone elsewhere to work. After many field visits and much research, Shi Jinglei decided to rely on the village's current situation of abundant corn stalks and develop a breeding business. First, it could make him rich; second, it could arrange for young people from the village to work at the farm.
In the summer of 2015, Shi Jinglei and his fellow villagers Shi Long and Shi Qiang began preparations. What materials to use to build the farm, and what kind of breeding farm to build? With these questions, he visited many breeders and made investment budgets. In the early stage of building the breeding farm, he did not have much capital, so he also put in more than 100,000 yuan that he had set aside to buy a house in the county town, and borrowed some more from relatives and friends, scraping together 500,000 yuan. In October, construction of the breeding farm officially broke ground. During that period, they got up at 5 a.m. every day to work and did not go to sleep until after 10 p.m. Because they lacked funds and could not afford to hire more people, he had to work with his own hands every day, exhausting himself completely. When the villagers learned he was building a breeding farm, they all came to help. Those familiar, honest smiling faces filled Shi Jinglei with endless gratitude.
Shi Jinglei, now 36 years old, is a farmer's son born and raised in the countryside. He loved sports from childhood and later was admitted to Baoding Sports School. After graduation, he originally planned to become a physical education teacher in the village, but after his cohort graduated, the county no longer guaranteed job assignments, so he had no choice but to return to the village and become a farmer. He had worked elsewhere and done business, but could only barely maintain his basic living.
Hard work pays off. By the 2016 Spring Festival, his Youcheng Breeding Farm was completed: a high-standard livestock barn with a floor area of more than 12,000 sq m, plus a fodder storage pool, with a total investment reaching more than 1 million yuan. In February this year, Shi Jinglei's Youcheng Breeding Farm became lively. The first batch he bought, 50 young donkeys and 10 beef cattle, began to enter the pens for fattening. He recruited 3 villagers as feeders. To save money, he also brought his elderly father to the farm to feed the donkeys.
After several setbacks, he borrowed another 200,000 yuan in loans and bought feed from elsewhere, and the farm began operating. Although Shi Jinglei grew up in the countryside, raising meat donkeys is different from traditional livestock keeping; it must follow scientific breeding concepts. He carefully studied meat donkey feeding methods and management techniques, and consulted others about problems he could not figure out. Through continuous learning and experimentation, he learned some basic feed ratios, feeding methods, livestock epidemic prevention, and operational management. Up to now, Shi Jinglei's Youcheng meat donkey breeding scale has reached more than 100 head, and beef cattle have reached more than 50 head. After May Day, he will also formally register a farmers' professional cooperative for donkey raising to expand the breeding scale.
Shi Jinglei's entrepreneurship also brought more ordinary people into the effort and won strong support from the county and township governments and multiple departments. The township Party committee, the township government, and the village-based working group for targeted poverty alleviation came to the farm many times to guide him and actively help solve all kinds of difficulties. Leaders from the county poverty alleviation office and other departments also came to the farm to guide the work, offered many good suggestions, and gave him great encouragement.
The entrepreneurial story of young farmer Shi Jinglei in breeding won recognition from the villagers. When talking about his feelings on returning home to start a meat donkey breeding business, Shi Jinglei said with emotion: opening a breeding farm has low investment risk and high profit returns, can make full use of the region's abundant forage resources, and the breeding market has broad prospects and enormous development potential!