Rex rabbit farming helps villagers in Huayuan County escape poverty and become prosperous
Long Xianlin inspecting the rex rabbits
Long Xianlin, who has always pursued the path of self-employment, is from Luqiao Village, Lianghe Township, Huayuan County, and he is now checking on the rex rabbits at the breeding base. Today, this rex rabbit farm of more than 1 mu beside the village is his most treasured possession; every day he revolves around these rabbits, carefully striving here for the career he has committed himself to.
Long Xianlin preparing feed for the rex rabbits
In 1996, Long Xianlin was discharged from the military and returned home. In his words: "When I returned home after leaving the military, I saw how backward and poor my hometown was. At that time I thought to myself that I definitely had to start a business in my hometown and raise the local economy." For his first business venture he chose pig farming. At the time, pig farming was very profitable, and he earned his first pot of gold in life. He decided to go all in and invest in an industry with high risk and high returns, but due to his own misjudgment, the business failed, and he suffered a major blow in life.
Long Xianlin feeding the rex rabbits
The investment failure made Long Xianlin feel that only down-to-earth entrepreneurship was the right approach. A few years later, Long Xianlin returned to his old trade and successively raised chickens, pigs, game, ducks, meat rabbits and so on. Because he lacked scientific insight and breeding techniques, Long Xianlin made no profit from anything he raised, until in 2012 the 1000 geese he was raising died, and more than half of the meat rabbits he was raising also died, which dealt Long Xianlin yet another blow.
Long Xianlin cleaning up
In 2014, unwilling to give up, Long Xianlin kept searching for a suitable business project. One day he accidentally saw information online about rex rabbit farming. After investigating and comparing many options, he decided to go in person to the Wanmin breeding base in Jiaxiang County, Shandong, to study rex rabbit breeding methods on site. After half a month of study, Long Xianlin bought 100 breeding rabbits and brought them home to set up a rex rabbit farm.
Long Xianlin sorting out the water pipes for the rex rabbits to drink from
Because he had gained the skills and knowledge for breeding rex rabbits, he saw considerable returns within a year. In November 2015, Long Xianlin made a correct decision: he decided to establish a cooperative and wanted to bring the surrounding villagers along to raise rex rabbits.
Rex rabbits drinking water
Long Xianlin told the reporter that 1 rex rabbit gives birth to 1 litter a month, and 1 litter has 7 to 8 rabbit kits. Generally, the kits are ready for market at more than 3 months old. The buyer comes to collect the goods once a month, with a guaranteed minimum price of 10 yuan per jin, so the returns are still fairly considerable.
Long Xianlin explaining rex rabbits to villagers who came to inquire about them
Because rex rabbit farming is not complicated, the buyer comes to collect the goods, there is no worry about market sales, and the returns are relatively high, and since they also saw that Long Xianlin was making a profit, villagers Long Jinjie and Long Jinbiao decided to buy shares and join Long Xianlin in setting up the Jinyang Rex Rabbit Breeding Professional Cooperative, investing a total of more than 200,000 yuan to build the farm. The current scale is 500 rex rabbits.
The cooperative is established
Long Xianlin leads the members of the Jinyang Rex Rabbit Breeding Professional Cooperative. They want to blaze a trail, attract more villagers to join their ranks, and let the villagers walk together on the road to escaping poverty and becoming prosperous.