The entrepreneurial legend of a cattle-rich success story in Cengong, Guizhou
In Tianxing Township, Cengong County, Guizhou Province, and the surrounding townships, when people talk about Yang Guiwen, everyone who knows him gives a thumbs-up and calls him a "wealth-building talent." The author came specifically to see just how "capable" the subject of this legendary story really is. After face-to-face interviews, conversations, and visits with local people, it turns out that rather than calling Yang Guiwen a "wealth-building talent," it would be better to call him a "cattle-rich success." Just how "cattle-strong" is he? Four stories about him are enough to explain.
"Cattle" story one: He never lost money raising cattle as an entrepreneur
In 2009, after experiencing failure in an entrepreneurial venture raising ducks, Yang Guiwen used the 50,000 yuan he had left from working as a migrant laborer to switch to raising cattle. The reason he chose cattle was that he felt the rice straw used to feed them was cheap. He built pens, bought rice straw, bought 9 local water buffalo from the surrounding area, and together with his own 2 head, started his second entrepreneurial venture with 11 head. After a year of careful feeding, the cattle were ready for market. Although he did not lose money, he did not earn as much as he had imagined. He found that local water buffalo ate a lot, grew slowly, and had weak market demand for their meat, which were the main reasons for the low economic returns. To make more money, he had to change breeds. So he switched to raising local yellow cattle. By the end of 2010, after 30 head of local yellow cattle were sold, the returns were still not encouraging. At this point, he had the idea of going out to take a look.
At the end of 2011, Yang Guiwen took all his savings plus 120,000 yuan in government support, 200,000 yuan in total, and went south to Guangdong to learn from a master. A month later, he bought back 35 imported beef cattle of 3 breeds: Simmental, Limousin, and Charolais. After a year of patient care, in the winter of 2012, Yang Wengui sold the first batch of 35 imported beef cattle together with several calves, making a net profit of more than 200,000 yuan. Switching to imported beef cattle became the turning point in his cattle-raising venture, earned him his first bucket of gold through hard work, and also let him taste for the first time what it was like to count large stacks of cash.
36 head in 2013, 45 head in 2014, 66 head in 2015. Striving for "80 head in 2016, and using 3-5 years to achieve independent breeding and farming, help lead the whole village to raise cattle together, and gradually move onto a path of standardized, large-scale farming" was Yang Guiwen's industry development plan. In this way, through steady, solid progress, one step at a time, and a "snowballing" approach that did not blindly seek size, Yang Guiwen remained undefeated on his cattle-raising entrepreneurial path and became a widely known "legendary figure" in cattle-raising circles.
"Cattle" story two: Two cattle earned 30,000 yuan
Imported beef cattle grow quickly, have a short cycle, sell well, and bring high returns, with fixed sources of supply and sales channels. Sales often come when customers contact him on their own and place orders in advance. Most are sold to Hunan and Guangdong, and some are sold as far as Hong Kong, China.
In 2012, due to poor technique and carelessness, 5 of the 36 imported beef cattle Yang Guiwen was raising died, worth about 100,000 yuan, which became a lingering pain for him for a time. Fortunately within misfortune, the beef cattle market happened to be good that year, and after deducting losses and all costs, he still made a net profit of 100,000 yuan. Even more surprising was that the last two cattle were sold as far as Hong Kong, China, earning a net profit of more than 30,000 yuan, an average profit of more than 15,000 yuan per head. As of now, among the surrounding cattle-raising circles, he has set the record for the highest profit from a single head of cattle. Surprises kept coming. In 2014, he sold 20 head of cattle in a single order, setting another record for his highest single order.
"Cattle" story three: Self-taught feed mixing produced quick results
Yang Guiwen's cattle-raising costs were low and the cattle grew quickly, so nearby farmers thought he must have a "secret weapon" and came one after another to visit and learn. Yang Guiwen always held nothing back and taught them everything he knew. Before long, his "secret weapon" became an open secret.
When it came to raising this kind of imported beef cattle, he did indeed have a "secret weapon," and that was his homemade feed. His feed was made by mixing and processing distillers' grains, soybean meal, rapeseed cake, and other ingredients in certain proportions. The beef cattle not only liked to eat it, but also got sick less often. With this feed, a calf of about 4 months could generally gain about 70 jin per month, and cattle from 8 months to 24 months could gain about 100 jin per month. You may not believe it, but the feed formula was something he learned through self-study. Although his education level was not high, he had a unique talent for raising cattle, and of course this was inseparable from his diligence and love of learning. At first, he relied on the shallow techniques he had learned in Guangdong to explore cattle raising and suffered painful losses caused by insufficient technical skill. Later, he simply bought relevant books specifically on raising this kind of imported beef cattle, studied hard, and finally mastered this "secret weapon."
"Cattle" story four: A junior high school education became an expert
After starting his cattle-raising venture, with his younger brother's help, many professional books were sent from outside on imported beef cattle raising, disease prevention and treatment, and related topics. With only a junior high school education, he understood only half of most of what was described in the books, and there were even some characters he could only recognize with the help of a dictionary. Word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, he slowly studied. With a stubborn "cattle-like" determination, he "chewed through" all the books his younger brother sent back. In the process of repeated practice and summary, he not only mastered feed mixing techniques, but also mastered disease prevention and treatment techniques, becoming a veritable "local expert."
He said that at that time, he was like someone possessed while practicing martial arts, carrying books around the cattle pen all day, looking at the book, then looking at the cattle, looking at the cattle, then looking at the book again, observing carefully and seriously comparing everything with what the books said. At such times the cattle would also stop eating and stare at him, eyes wide on both sides, making for a very funny scene.
It is not boasting at all to say that Yang Guiwen's current medical skill has reached an expert level. For a sick cow, he only needs to listen to its breathing, look at its digestion, and observe carefully to know roughly what illness the cow has, and then prescribe the right medicine, and basically it can recover. Villagers from far and near all ask him to treat their own farm cattle when they get sick, and so far there has not been a single case of a cow dying from his treatment, with basically immediate recovery after medicine. The villagers all offered money and goods to thank him, but he not only politely declined, he did not even accept a single cent for medicine or treatment fees.
From the initial 11 head of cattle to today's 66 head, with an annual output value of more than 700,000 yuan, Yang Guiwen has also driven 11 nearby farming households to develop the cattle-raising industry, solved employment for 14 people, and become a widely known "cattle-rich success."