"Wild Boar King" Yang Deying Makes Big Money Raising Wild Boars on Waste

    Pig prices have plummeted, leaving pig farmers sick with worry, but "Wild Boar King" Yang Deying has been quietly gloating lately: the wild boars he raises are not only in short supply, but their gross profit margin is as high as 200%. "The cost of raising domestic pigs is nearly 5 yuan per jin, while raising wild boars costs me only 3 yuan per jin." Yang Deying, who once made his start in aquatic seedling breeding, took a different path by the sea in Fotan Town, Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou, and after lying low for three years created his own low-cost wild boar raising secret, drawing industry peers from across the country to come and learn from him.

Recently, Yang Deying told a reporter the whole story of his unusual and rugged road to wealth.

He was once the "Fry King"

"Fujian's 'Abalone King' is right in our village, and he's a good friend of mine." Yang Deying proudly introduced his village. In the eyes of many villagers, Yang Deying was once even more prominent than the "Abalone King," because he was the first person in Zhangpu to breed aquatic seedlings.

In the 1980s, when the town's young and able-bodied men went out to sea to fish, Yang Deying instead chose to work as a contract worker at the Fujian Fisheries Research Institute in Xiamen, learning marine fish fry breeding technology, and he studied for six years.
In 1996, Yang Deying returned to Zhangpu and raised funds to set up his first seedling breeding factory. However, because farmers worried that artificially bred fry would not grow big, his fry were repeatedly rejected. Later, Yang decided to promote them first through relatives and friends, charging only half the fry fee upfront and waiting until the farmers sold their fish before paying the other half.

This tactic worked, and artificially bred fry gradually became accepted by local farmers. "Money was really easy to make back then; casually, there was 3 to 5 million yuan in profit a year," Yang Deying admitted.

The wealth effect drew many imitators. Including workers under Yang Deying, many local farmers rushed to follow suit. Competition intensified, fry quality kept declining, and farmers' profits shrank. The fry market's appeal diminished and risks grew.

Even more unfortunately, a typhoon in 1999 swept away nearly 10 million yuan of Yang's assets. From then on, Yang Deying, who loved a challenge, decided to change careers. Turning Waste into Treasure to Raise Wild Boars

By chance, Yang Deying tasted wild boar meat given to him by a friend from abroad; the fat was not greasy, the lean meat was not tough, and it was fragrant, smooth and delicious. Sharp-sensed, he immediately had an idea: switch careers and raise wild boars.

After inspecting dozens of wild boar farms across the country, Yang Deying resolved to convert the factory building where he had raised abalone into pig pens and become the first person in southern Fujian to raise wild boars. However, not only did his wife cry and object, even relatives and friends thought something was wrong with his head.

At the end of 2005, he spent more than 200,000 yuan to buy more than 100 hybrid wild boars from farms in Zhejiang, Northeast China and other places, and also bought four or five purebred male wild boars at about 10,000 yuan each, and began to go at it in earnest.

"In farming, controlling costs is most important; only low costs give you competitiveness." Yang Deying found that farmhouse pork is more expensive than farmed pork not because of the piglets, but because of differences in feed and raising methods.

"If you eat well every day and do not exercise, you will certainly get sick. Pigs are the same." Yang Deying gave a vivid analogy to explain why he fed his pigs "coarse grains." Moreover, as a major vegetable-producing county in southern Fujian, Zhangpu's more than 100 vegetable processing factories gave Yang uniquely favorable conditions.

To find feed for the wild boars, Yang Deying was like a scrap collector: peanut shells, vegetable stalks, bean stalks and other crop residues, oyster shells, and the carrot residue produced after extracting Beigi wild vegetable juice were all "picked up" and treasured by him.

After three years and no fewer than 100 experiments, Yang Deying finally found a suitable additive and settled on a low-cost feed formula.

Enduring Hardship While Waiting for His "Day in the Sun"

In June last year, relying on "Yang's feed," Yang Deying finally bred wild boars ready for market. "The feeding cost is 2 yuan per jin, plus the piglet, the average raising cost of a 200-jin wild boar is about 3 yuan per jin, while the market wholesale price of wild boar meat is above 10 yuan." By this calculation, the gross profit margin is around 200%, but Yang Deying had no intention of selling at all; his ambition was to breed more sows capable of reproducing, so that the piglets would expand geometrically.

However, the sudden financial storm nearly undid all of Yang Deying's previous efforts. Exported aquatic products were unsalable, and the more than 100,000 yuan per month in pig-raising funds that had originally come from aquatic products suddenly broke off. Should he let the wild boars he was raising continue to grow into sows for breeding, or start selling pigs to revitalize his assets? Yang Deying struggled for a long time.

In September 2008, things suddenly took a turn. A customer wanted to buy 200 wild boars at 2,000 yuan each. Once this deal was completed, Yang Deying's predicament could be greatly alleviated. But unexpectedly, he did not sell.

Yang Deying said he would rather eat only two meals himself than sell his breeding pigs, otherwise years of hard work would be wasted.