Rex rabbit farming helps Zuo Xiaofang onto the road to prosperity
Walking into Zuo Xiaofang's home in Badarenggui Gacha, Badarenggui Office, one is greeted by row upon row of neat wire rabbit cages. Zuo Xiaofang, dressed in a white coat, is feeding more than 200 lovely white rabbits. At the mention of raising rabbits, Zuo Xiaofang immediately becomes talkative.
The 23-year-old Zuo Xiaofang's maiden home is in Haoren. She married into Badarenggui Gacha at the end of last year. Before her marriage, she already had one year of rabbit-raising experience in Haoren. During this period, she went from knowing nothing - actively exploring - to successful breeding, paying a great deal of hardship. Relying on interest and hobby, whenever she had time she studied practical knowledge of rex rabbit raising, and many times went to the homes of specialized rabbit-raising households in Debesi Town to learn. Whenever she did not understand something, she called again and again to consult until she understood it clearly. One breeding rabbit can reproduce about 7 times each year, with 7-8 young rabbits each time. This rapid reproductive capacity let her see the hope of becoming rich. Starting from purchasing 20 breeding rabbits, she cleverly found a way onto the path of rex rabbit farming.
Zuo Xiaofang is adding feed to the trough.
In raising rex rabbits, careful feeding is the key. Rabbits are timid by nature. During the breeding period of the breeding rabbits, she kept watch day and night to assist with the births. If they are not carefully looked after, at the slightest disturbance the breeding rabbit will eat its own young rabbits, and then the loss would be great. The follow-up epidemic prevention work is also of paramount importance. Every young rabbit must receive an immunization injection each month, while breeding rabbits are injected once every 4 months. If the immunization injections keep up, the epidemic situation will be effectively controlled. This year she invested more than 1500.00 yuan to buy a mechanical pellet machine, and she mixes and processes the feed herself. The mixed feed includes soybean cake, wheat bran, corn and some epidemic prevention medicine. The processed feed is especially liked by the rex rabbits, and it saves both worry and effort - just add a little water. After careful feeding, last year she earned a net income of more than 10000.00 yuan from this item alone. Through her own breeding practice, she has also proved that raising rex rabbits is a project with the characteristics of occupying little land, reproducing quickly, tolerating coarse feed, having strong disease resistance, requiring little investment, having a short cycle, yielding quick results and high profits. It is a very good project for increasing income for the broad masses of rural women in their spare time from field management.
It is understood that her mother-in-law's family used to depend on the weather for a living. With more than 30 mu of paddy fields and dry fields, in a good year there was some surplus, but in a bad year even the cost of farming the next year became a problem. After she married into Bai Xueliang's family in Badarenggui Gacha, she also brought the rabbit-raising project with her, and brought 10 sets of rabbit cages. Now the number of breeding rabbits has reached more than 40 (each priced at more than 100.00 yuan), and there are more than 200 rex rabbits newly bred for one month. Rex rabbits can be fully grown in 3-4 months, and the Baicheng commercial rabbit recycling company collects them regularly. The price of each commercial rabbit is about 35.00 yuan. Calculating on the basis that each breeding rabbit reproduces about 7 times per year and gives birth to 7-8 young rabbits each time, after deducting costs, the income is still quite considerable.
In order to check the demand for rex rabbits in various places through the online information platform and grasp market trends in a timely manner, in 2009 she invested more than 5000.00 yuan to buy a computer and installed Tietong broadband. In this way, she can not only learn the latest breeding techniques, but also learn various kinds of rex rabbit prevention and treatment knowledge, greatly increasing the survival rate of the rex rabbits. This both lowers input costs and increases income, making her the first person among farming households in Badarenggui Gacha to embark on the path of information-based farming. She also has an ideal: through the visible benefits she has achieved, to drive the neighboring farmers and sisters to develop rex rabbit farming, form a scale, and achieve the goal of becoming prosperous together.