Native spotted pig farming sets Baodi farmer Sun Youmin on a new path to wealth

Everyone else raises improved breeds, but he insists on raising native pigs; other people's pigs go to market in 4 or 5 months, while his native pigs take more than a year to reach market weight. Sun Youmin of Wangjiakou Village, Xinkaikou Town, Baodi District, has taken an unconventional path and brought his own wealth-making formula to life.

When the reporter arrived at the Tianpeng Flower Pig Farm, keeper Li Guangcheng was feeding the pigs. Li Guangcheng explained that this feed is not ordinary feed, but feed the farm makes itself. "This is finished feed made from corn and soybean meal that we grind ourselves. From the time the piglets are separated into pens and start eating feed until they go to market, they eat this."

Walking outside the pigpens, the reporter also noticed that a special patch of ground was fenced off outside each pen. Li Guangcheng explained that this is an area for the pigs to move around. As he spoke, he opened the exit of a pigpen and drove out the pigs that had just eaten, starting their post-meal exercise. "We let the pigs exercise twice a day, at noon and in the evening. This can increase the lean meat percentage and make the taste better."

Sun Youmin, general manager of Tianpeng Flower Pig Farm, said that these black-and-white, sturdy-looking pigs are his magic key to wealth. These pigs are Ningxiang pigs he introduced from Hunan in 2007. This breed has strong disease resistance and fine-textured meat. But bringing these southern pigs north to raise was not easy. Sun Youmin: "I brought in 30 breeding pigs, and after the first year only 3 were left. I saw it was not working, so I went over there again to take a look. Their veterinarian told me to bring in smaller pigs, raise piglets, and let them adapt slowly."

The native spotted pigs were raised successfully, but next Sun Youmin faced a new difficulty: there was no sales channel for the pork. Sun Youmin told the reporter that at the time he figured that since it was hard to sell, he would sell it himself. He opened the first pork shop in Tianjin's urban area, and unexpectedly it gradually built up a good reputation. Sun Youmin said: "Now I have opened five shops in the city. One shop sells about one pig a day, and sales are pretty good. The people who eat our pork eat it long term; they are all regular customers."

Today his farm markets more than 1,000 of these native pigs each year. No matter how the pork market price fluctuates, his native pork can sell for 4 or 50 yuan per jin. Right now, native pig farming is getting better and better, and Sun Youmin has new ideas: "I plan to build my own brand, sell pork to Beijing, and expand the scale of the pig farm so that the annual inventory reaches about 2,000 head."