Village Doctor Crosses Over into Breeding and Becomes a Big Pigeon Raiser

“Being a ‘village doctor’ is my main job; raising pigeons is just a spare-time ‘hobby.’ The fact that it has now grown to annual sales of more than 20,000 squabs is thanks to the inspiration I gained from taking part in ‘distance education’ study.” A few days ago, Zhang Lijie, a big pigeon raiser from the Shuangyuan villager group of Shuangyang Village Committee in Yinqiao Town, Dali City, said in an interview during a break in his rotation at the village clinic that as long as a person persists, is patient and serious, he will succeed in whatever he does.

Zhang Lijie is 42 this year. He began working as a “village doctor” in 1991. The village clinic has 3 medical workers and serves more than 4,400 people in Shuangyang Village. Today, his family is the largest “big pigeon raiser” in Dali City. “I have loved raising homing pigeons since I was a child, and I even won the championship in a city homing pigeon competition.” Zhang Lijie recalled that 9 years ago he shifted from a hobby to making money, so he switched to raising meat pigeons. He introduced 450 pairs of breeding pigeons, and relying on his own pigeon-raising skills and medical knowledge, his pigeon-raising scale gradually grew. Unexpectedly, a plague in 2010 caused the breeding pigeons to die one after another. Fortunately, under the guidance of experts from the provincial poultry disease science and technology center, the rescue was handled properly, and the usual 80% mortality rate was kept within 20%. He deeply felt the importance of “knowledge.” In 2011, Shuangyang Village was equipped with distance education equipment for Party members and officials in Yunnan Province, and Zhang Lijie became a loyal student of “distance education.” Once, a “distance education” feature film introduced a farmer in Changchun City, Jilin Province, who combined local methods with foreign methods in pig farming, which inspired him: “Pigeon raising can also combine the ‘local’ with the ‘foreign.’” He redesigned and rebuilt the breeding sheds to achieve “warm in winter and cool in summer.” “With a good breeding site, both the quantity and quality of my pigeons improved.” Zhang Lijie said proudly that a squab 21 to 28 days old has a gross weight of 1.1 to 1.2 jin, and the largest even reaches 1.5 jin.

The squabs he raises are mainly sold through “orders” to Dali, Lijiang, Deqin and other places, with an annual output value of more than 400,000 yuan. Zhang Lijie said frankly: “I once wanted to give up being a ‘village doctor’ and devote myself to pigeon raising, but in the end I chose to keep being a doctor.” The breeding farm at his home is mainly managed by his wife. The monthly salary of a “village doctor” is only more than 1,000 yuan, not even enough to pay the wages of the 1 worker hired to help. He said calmly: “My mother is 74 years old, and she has been a ‘barefoot doctor’ in the village since she was 18. She taught me that I must not just be a ‘rich man,’ but a ‘useful person’ who earns the villagers’ respect. I will not give up my main job as a ‘village doctor.’ Healing the sick and saving lives for the villagers is the important thing.”