A post-80s young man starts a snake farming business, leading villagers onto the road to prosperity
When it comes to snakes, most people feel frightened and avoid them at all costs. But in the eyes of Long Xuyuan, a post-80s young man, snakes are not only valuable from head to tail, but also lovely animals. They have also become the means by which Long Xuyuan realizes his dream of starting a business and getting rich.
Long Xuyuan is a specialized snake farmer from the Nanshan Village Committee of Fuwang Town. Long Xuyuan, who had always been working away from home, got married in 2012 and returned to his hometown. Once back home, he thought of farming snakes. If he wanted to do it, he would do it, and do it well. Long Xuyuan acted as soon as he had the idea. That same year, he went to Nanning to learn snake farming techniques from breeding experts and experienced specialized snake farmers, then returned to his hometown to start farming snakes on his own.
After three years of development, Long Xuyuan's farming scale has gradually expanded, growing from a few hundred snakes at the start to more than 2,000 snakes now. Long Xuyuan mainly farms rat snakes and cobras. Cobras are venomous snakes, and great care must be taken when farming them, as the neurotoxic venom of cobras can block neuromuscular transmission, causing muscle paralysis and death. Long Xuyuan said: "Although farming cobras is relatively dangerous, their returns are higher than those of rat snakes, so I plan to farm more cobras in the future." Before entering the snake facility, Long Xuyuan instructed us not to talk loudly after going in. He said that although snakes cannot see, their hearing is very sensitive, and they can sense even the slightest sound.
"You see, these frogs, mice and chicks are all snake food." Long Xuyuan opened a freezer in the snake facility and told us, "After a snake eats its fill, it coils up in its nest for several days, or even more than ten days, without moving, and only after the food in its belly is completely digested will it crawl out of the nest again to drink water and seek food." Snakes are voracious by nature, and sometimes they especially like to snatch ready meat from the mouths of other snakes. It is common to find two, three or four snakes fighting over a single frog, which can easily lead to cannibalism and cause unnecessary losses. When this happens, Long Xuyuan promptly throws in several more pieces of food to avoid the fighting.
Long Xuyuan's snake facility is very well organized. The incubation room, juvenile snake room, adult snake room and so on are each independent rooms, and the snake rooms are partitioned into small individual rooms. Each room holds a bed covered with a thick quilt, and the snakes are kept separately in different rooms according to their species and size. In the snake facility, Long Xuyuan skillfully checks the temperature and humidity and inspects the growth conditions of the snakes in their nests.
It is understood that steeping snakes in liquor can be used to treat rheumatism, while the snakes Long Xuyuan farms are mostly sold as meat products to the Conghua area of Guangdong. Generally, after about 13 months of farming, the snakes can begin to be sold. Now Long Xuyuan earns more than 100,000 yuan a year from snake farming, which is a quite considerable income for a farmer.
Now, with Long Xuyuan's help, 17 households among the villagers of the Nanshan Village Committee have embarked on the road to prosperity through snake farming. No matter who asks him for advice, he teaches his snake farming techniques without reservation. The snake farming industry in the village has developed rapidly, and a specialized snake farming cooperative has been established. After the cooperative was set up, he will also make use of the newly established farming cooperative in the future to introduce some snake species with low input and high returns, leading more villagers into the specialty farming industry and achieving common income growth and prosperity.