Black pigs that love to exercise are profitable and bring high farming returns

The black pigs raised by Deng Yong in Neijiang, Sichuan Province can not only swim, but he also trains them to run. His approach drew opposition from many people, and even his younger brother split the family business with him. The pigs were trained into athletic stars, yet Deng Yong fell into tens of millions of yuan in debt. But three years later, he pulled off a massive reversal of fortune. See how running piglets brought him hundreds of millions in wealth.

Deng Yong: Comrades, assemble, let's go, those competing, let's go.

Under Deng Yong's leadership, 400 people from all over Sichuan Province gathered together. They were here to watch a special sports meet.

It turned out the contestants everyone was waiting for were these little black pigs.

They are Neijiang pigs native to Sichuan, and their distinguishing feature is that they always look like they are frowning.

The first event for the piglets today is swimming.

As soon as the 9 piglets hit the water, they swam forward with all their might. Piglet No. 1 took a commanding lead, and amid the cheers of the crowd, Piglet No. 1 ultimately won the swimming championship.

The piglet swimming got the whole crowd fired up, and soon they moved on to the second event, the piglet race.

Deng Yong: Rules, line up.

Before he had even finished explaining the rules, the piglets were already running impatiently, and after some commotion the race started over. The 9 family groups were divided into three groups, and whoever drove their piglet to the finish line first would win.

Deng Yong: Everyone to your positions, go, go!

The piglets all gave it their all, and once again it was this Piglet No. 1, which left its opponents far behind as soon as it appeared.

The family groups trailing behind pulled out all the stops to catch up with Piglet No. 1, and the scene instantly descended into chaos.

But no matter how everyone chased, in the end Piglet No. 1 was still the first to dash across the finish line and took first place.

These piglets were all dual-sport athletes in both sprinting and swimming, which made many spectators at the scene find it novel.

The crowd watched with fresh curiosity, but for Deng Yong this was exactly the key to his growing wealth. On holidays, relying on these activities, he could attract tens of thousands of people a year to Deng Yong's sightseeing park. The black pigs brought Deng Yong hundreds of millions in wealth, and he became famous because of the black pigs too. But what locals enjoyed talking about even more was another piece of news about Deng Yong.

One day in December 2006, when the villagers of Gaoshibazi Village saw Deng Yong, they all wanted to run up and say a few words to him, asking how he had made so much money so quickly.

Li Bin: A lot of people were all talking about it, why did he suddenly rise up.

Deng Yong's younger brother: All of a sudden, to be honest it was like winning the lottery, last month he was a poor wretch, next month he was a millionaire, it reached that level.

Zhou Jianhui's wife: It felt like a dream, I never expected it, because before our family was really poor, we even had trouble affording meals.

Deng Yong: At that time I was really overjoyed, being able to earn several million, so happy, it felt at the time like such a good thing could happen.

Deng Yong's family was poor since childhood. At age 27 he went to Guangdong to work for three years, but in the end he didn't earn much money either. In 2004, Deng Yong returned to his hometown and started raising commercial pigs. After two years he still hadn't recovered his costs when he ran into a big market slump. Many people worried about him, but Deng Yong didn't seem too anxious.

Deng Yong: Pig farming is cyclical, basically a three-year cycle. In a relatively stable stretch, one year you can make money, one year you can break even, one year you will lose money, so it's a three-year cycle.

The principle of the three-year pig farming cycle was no secret in the industry, but many pig farms still began selling breeding pigs at low prices. Deng Yong, however, went crazy and borrowed more than 400,000 yuan from all around to buy up breeding pigs against the trend, which shocked everyone.

Reporter: You had only been farming for just over two years and you already knew this principle. Lots of people also know this principle, why don't they dare to?

Deng Yong: This is a bit hard to explain clearly. Most people have a bit of the mindset of only doing business that makes money, it's fluid. I firmly believe in this confidence, that I want to keep this industry going, no matter how hard the road is, we must keep walking it, so our way of thinking is different. Others raise pigs today if raising pigs makes money, raise chickens tomorrow if raising chickens makes money, grow vegetables the day after if growing vegetables makes money, then they go grow vegetables. I have chosen this industry, and as for how this industry develops, we have to work hard, analyze the market, get the market clear and understand its changes, and figure out how we survive.

Deng Yong's judgment and persistence let him seize the opportunity. In 2007, the market was booming, and Deng Yong netted more than 2 million yuan in one go. Then within the next 2 years, Deng Yong expanded his pig farm to 6,000 sq m, and annual marketings of breeding pigs and commercial pigs rose from 1,000 head to more than 5,000 head. By 2009, Deng Yong's annual sales reached more than 15 million yuan.

The joy of success and the improvement in his family's life all came from pigs, but in 2009, Deng Yong told his family he was going to sell all his breeding pigs and start over. This choice, in the eyes of his family, was even riskier than borrowing money to buy breeding pigs before. Deng Yonggang is Deng Yong's younger brother. Starting in 2002, he followed Deng Yong in raising pigs, and previously he had supported Deng Yong's choices unconditionally.

Younger brother Deng Yonggang: I thought it was a pipe dream, I thought once this thing got out there was no saving it.

These employees had followed Deng Yong in raising pigs since 2006. Although they didn't react as strongly as his younger brother, in private they were all sweating with worry.

Employee Duan Feng: Transformation is a very painful thing, and it carries huge risk. At the time our white pig scale was already up, we could market roughly several thousand to tens of thousands head a year, but suddenly switching to black pigs meant opening up the market all over again, letting customers get to know our products all over again, and it was something that would face many difficulties.

Everyone was so worried, so what exactly did Deng Yong want to switch to raising?

Deng Yong: Look at this, this is the local breed characteristic of the Neijiang pig.

The ugly pig Deng Yong spoke of is a local black pig of Neijiang. Besides a coat of black bristles, its most distinctive feature is a pair of frown lines.

At the end of 2008, the pork market cooled again. Although ordinary commercial pigs had once let Deng Yong make his first pot of gold, they were simply too affected by market fluctuations. Deng Yong began looking for a new pork breed, wanting to build his own brand. This idea was good, and everyone approved, but the one thing they didn't approve of was his choice of the Neijiang black pig, which everyone felt was too risky.

Younger brother: Him raising black pigs, at the time we thought it was inconceivable. This pig had already been phased out by people, its reproductive capacity, growth speed and lean meat rate were all worse than three-way cross pigs.

Employee Zhang Yiyong: As for raising black pigs, everyone considered one thing, that sales would be very poor, because people were more accepting of white pigs, and there was still an adaptation process for black pigs.

Deng Yong was very resolute, but everyone was pessimistic about it. His younger brother Deng Yonggang even argued with Deng Yong every time they met. More than two months later, his younger brother decided to quit and split the family business with Deng Yong.

Younger brother: At the time he wanted us to raise black pigs, but I didn't raise them anyway.

Even though his younger brother decided to go his own way, it still couldn't change Deng Yong's mind. In February 2009, Deng Yong introduced more than 400 breeding pigs from the Neijiang pig conservation farm and began raising them.

After about ten months of growth, in December 2009, Deng Yong's first batch of black pigs was ready for market. But this made everyone worry about him even more, because this kind of pig simply didn't sell well.

Younger brother: When he was raising black pigs, in our minds we imagined black pigs were even cheaper than white pigs. Our white pigs sold for eight yuan a jin, black pigs could sell for at most six-plus yuan, seven yuan.

Li Bin: People here used to raise black pigs, and the black pigs couldn't be sold.

But no one expected that Deng Yong used a clever method to sell his first batch of black pigs for a price three times higher than ordinary commercial pork. Once again it caused a sensation.

Deng Yong: More than a hundred head came out, and they were all reserved by people. As soon as this thing was launched, everyone reserved them all. We felt this was a huge success, we were simply overjoyed, and this road could definitely be walked easily.