How Wild Boar King Yang Deying Raises Wild Boars

    Pig prices have plummeted, worrying pig farmers everywhere, but "Wild Boar King" Yang Deying has been quietly celebrating: the wild boars he raises are not only in short supply, but their gross profit margin reaches as high as 200%. "The cost of raising domestic pigs is nearly 5 yuan/jin, while raising wild boars costs me only 3 yuan/jin." Yang Deying, who once made his name in aquatic seedling breeding, took a different path by the seaside in Fotan Town, Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou, and after three years of lying low, he created a unique low-cost wild boar farming method, drawing industry peers from across China to come and learn from him.

Once the "Fish Fry King"

"Fujian's 'Abalone King' is in our village, and he's a good friend of mine." Yang Deying proudly introduces 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 young men of the town went out to sea to fish, Yang Deying chose instead to work as a contract worker at the Fujian Fisheries Research Institute in Xiamen, learning marine fish fry cultivation techniques, and he studied there for 6 years.
　　
In 1996, Yang Deying returned to Zhangpu and raised funds to set up the first seedling breeding factory. However, because farmers worried that artificially bred fish fry would not grow big, his fry were repeatedly rejected. Later, Yang decided to first promote them among relatives and friends, and to charge only half the fry fee upfront, with the other half paid after the farmers sold their fish.
　　
This tactic worked, and artificially bred fry gradually gained acceptance among local farmers. "Money was really easy to make back then, casually pulling in three to five million in profit a year." Yang Deying admitted.
　　
The wealth effect attracted many imitators. Including workers under Yang Deying, many local farmers followed suit, competition intensified, fry quality kept declining, and farmers' profits shrank. The fry market became less attractive and riskier.
　　
Even more unfortunately, a typhoon in 1999 swept away nearly ten million of Yang's assets. After that, Yang Deying, who loves a challenge, decided to change careers. Turning Waste into Treasure by Raising 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 dry, and it was fragrant, smooth, and delicious. Sharp-eyed as he was, he immediately had an idea: switch to raising wild boars.
　　
After visiting dozens of wild boar farms across China, Yang Deying resolved to convert his former abalone breeding facility into pigsties and become the first person in southern Fujian to raise wild boars. However, not only did his wife cry and object, but 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 over 100 crossbred 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 all out.
　　
"In farming, controlling costs is most important; only with low costs can you be competitive." Yang Deying discovered that farmhouse pork is more expensive than feedlot pork not because of the piglets, but because of differences in feed and raising methods.
　　
"If you eat well every day and don't exercise, you'll definitely get sick. Pigs are the same." Yang Deying used a vivid analogy to explain why he feeds his pigs "coarse grains." Moreover, as a major vegetable-producing county in southern Fujian, Zhangpu has more than 100 vegetable processing plants, giving Yang uniquely favorable conditions.
　　
To find feed for his wild boars, Yang Deying was like a scrap collector: peanut shells, vegetable stalks, bean stalks, and other crop residues, oyster shells, and carrot residue left after extracting Beiqi wild vegetable juice, were all "picked up" by him like treasures.
　　
After three years and no fewer than a hundred experiments, Yang Deying finally found a suitable additive and finalized a low-cost feed formula.
　　
Enduring Hardship While Waiting for His "Day in the Sun"
　　
In June of last year, relying on "Yang's feed," Yang Deying finally bred wild boars ready for market. "The feeding cost is 2 yuan/jin, plus the piglet, so for a 200-jin wild boar, the average farming cost is about 3 yuan/jin, while the market wholesale price of wild boar meat is above 10 yuan." Calculated this way, 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 exponentially.
　　
However, the sudden financial storm nearly undid all of Yang Deying's efforts. Exported aquatic products were slow to sell, and the more than 100,000 yuan per month in pig-farming funds that originally came from aquaculture 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 when a customer wanted to buy 200 wild boars at 2,000 yuan each. If this deal went through, Yang Deying's predicament would be greatly eased. But unexpectedly, he refused to sell.
　　
Yang Deying said he would rather eat two meals a day himself than sell breeding pigs, otherwise years of hard work would be undone.