One-armed young man becomes a leader in prosperity by raising sheep during the Spring Festival

Post-80s sheep-raising expert, national outstanding migrant worker, leader in prosperity... Liu Ruyuan shines with many halos, but most people forget that he is a disabled person. During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Monkey, while people were immersed in the happiness and joy of family reunions and visiting relatives and friends, young man Liu Ruyuan from Bobai chose to stay in the sheep pen, using hard work to make the Spring Festival more meaningful.

This Spring Festival, the weather was especially good. Whenever the sun rose, Liu Ruyuan would naturally repeat the work routine he had formed over 8 years: checking the sheep pen, cutting grass, crushing grass, mixing feed, cleaning up, supplying water, and observing the sheep eating feed.

For breeders, the thing they fear most is sheep getting sick. Two weeks earlier, the weather was cold, and sheep were prone to colds and fever. While feeding them, he carefully observed each sheep's eating situation, afraid that even the slightest problem would appear. "Look at these ewes of mine, they are growing especially well. In a few days they will give birth. And these more than 20 lambs over here with glossy coats have already been reserved," Liu Ruyuan introduced to the guests.

It is understood that many returning migrant workers and merchants used the Spring Festival period to visit Liu Ruyuan's sheep-raising base to tour, learn, and discuss business. From the first to the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, the base received more than 60 people and sold more than 20 pairs of breeding sheep.

Liu Ruyuan, 33 this year, was born in Maopo Group, Changjiang Village, Jiangning Town, Bobai County. An accident in 1999 caused him to lose his right hand forever, but he did not yield to fate. In October 2009, he raised funds of 35,000 yuan from various sources and, taking advantage of the local rural area's abundant straw resources, founded in his hometown what was then Bobai County's first breeding sheep farm - Guangxi Bobai County Guiyuan Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd.

Today, Liu Ruyuan's sheep farm has developed into a large-scale breeding base integrating research and development of goat breed improvement, production, breeding, and supply and marketing in a "company + base + farmer" model. It covers a total area of more than 300 mu, has more than 800 Nubian breeding sheep of 6 strains, 7 standardized sheep barns totaling more than 2,800 sq m, and more than 200 mu of ecological pasture. It achieves an annual output value of more than 5 million yuan, drives more than 100 breeding households, and solves the employment problem of nearly 10 disabled people.

Since last year, many villagers have set their sights on Liu Ruyuan's set of secrets for escaping poverty and becoming rich - "raise sheep like pigs, grow grass like grain" - and came in groups to learn the methods of prosperity. More than 1,000 breeders even came from Guangdong, Guizhou, Hunan, Chongqing and other places to learn goat pen-raising techniques.

At the end of last year, Liu Ruyuan also took on an autonomous-region-level sunshine poverty alleviation project for disabled people. As vice chairman of the Jiangning Town Disabled Persons' Federation, he is responsible for leading 100 disabled people out of poverty and toward prosperity, and the task is by no means light. Even during the Spring Festival, breeders still called at night to consult him. Even for unfamiliar breeders with whom he had no business dealings, he taught them everything he knew without reservation.

Just one week before the Spring Festival, Liu Ruyuan learned from the Yulin City Human Resources and Social Security Bureau that he had won the 2015 "National Outstanding Migrant Worker" honorary title. Only two people in Yulin City received this honor.

At present, the "Autonomous Region Standardized Breeding Sheep Demonstration Base" project located at the company, covering more than 40 mu with a total investment of more than 6 million yuan, is under construction. Liu Ruyuan said that after the base is completed, he will put 2,000 breeding sheep into the base to continuously promote the scaled and intensive development of the sheep-raising industry; in the future, he will also develop deep processing of mutton, develop hygienic, safe, and healthy food, make the sheep industry bigger and stronger, and lead the villagers out of poverty and toward prosperity.