Henan rabbit farming king leads fellow villagers to prosperity together
Huang Changjin, the "rabbit farming king" of Baozi Village, Magutian Town, Biyang County, after achieving prosperity, voluntarily taught breeding techniques to his fellow villagers and led them out of poverty onto a path to wealth through rabbit farming. Yesterday, the reporter visited Huang Changjin's rabbit farming base and saw rabbit cages lined up in rows, with rabbits hopping about lively and endearing.
Huang Changjin, 53 years old this year, is a "top talent" of the eighth and ninth batches of professional and technical personnel in Biyang County, and a member of the Zhumadian City Agricultural Extension Association.
While raising rabbits, Huang Changjin explored techniques and gradually mastered the rabbits' living habits and disease prevention and treatment skills. Driven by Huang Changjin, almost every household in the village raised rabbits, and selling rabbit wool became the main source of income for many families. Later, when rabbit wool prices fell, Huang Changjin switched to raising meat rabbits, and raised more and more of them. As the number of meat rabbits grew, feed supply became a problem. Huang Changjin then began growing forage grass specifically for meat rabbits to eat.
In order to expand the scale, in the spring of 2008, Huang Changjin successively borrowed 200,000 yuan in loans, raised more than 300,000 yuan of his own funds, rented more than 20 mu of land, and built 3 multi-tier rabbit sheds capable of housing more than 10,000 rabbits. He purchased 12 large peanut picking machines to pick peanut pods for farmers free of charge, and bought back the farmers' peanut straw to process into rabbit feed.
Huang Changjin said the rabbits eat finished feed processed from straw as raw material. To keep the rabbits from getting sick, he also adds some dandelion, purple flower violet herb, mugwort leaves and the like to the feed. The rabbit shed is equipped with automatic feeding devices, feeding twice a day at fixed times and in fixed amounts. Each rabbit, from birth to market, excluding the nearly 30-day lactation period, needs only about 70 days of feeding.
According to Huang Changjin, he raises French Rex rabbits, whose fur and meat both have extremely high economic value.
The Rex rabbits ready for market are sold to Hebei, Hubei, Guangzhou and other places. With just one phone call, merchants come to purchase them on site, and demand exceeds supply. Driven by Huang Changjin, a large number of local fellow villagers have embarked on the road to prosperity through rabbit farming, which has also spread to several hundred farming households in surrounding areas such as Tongbai and Tanghe County in Nanyang City, and Queshan County in Zhumadian City.
In September 2015, Huang Changjin's farmers' cooperative was officially established. The cooperative is responsible for providing villagers with breeding rabbits, feed, technical guidance and sales.
Someone asked Huang Changjin: "You have accumulated the painstaking efforts of most of your life, and you give them to others for free. What are you after?" Huang Changjin said: "What am I after? I just want peace of mind. Who told me to be a Communist Party member!"