It is no problem for 22-year-old rural teenagers to earn 800000 yuan a year by raising porcupine.

A 22-year-old young man went to work in Zhejiang six years ago. After years of hard work, he opened a hair salon and became the boss. Last year, he resolutely returned to his hometown and started a porcupine farming industry, becoming a "celebrity" praised by the local villagers.

On January 5, the author went to Zhongdu Town, Pingshan County to interview Li Hengsong and listened to him talk about his growing experience from a migrant worker to a hair salon owner, as well as his "porcupine dream" in the New year.

Go out to the development gallery and have a "porcupine dream"

Li Hengsong is a group of five villagers in Xinping Village, Zhongdu Town, Pingshan County. In 2002, the 16-year-old went to work in Zhejiang with the villagers, then learned the art of haircutting and opened a hair salon. By 2006, the barber shop had developed into a fashion salon of a certain scale. "there are more than 10 workers with a net profit of 40,000 to 50,000 a year." He said.

The business of the hair salon is booming, but Li Hengsong is not satisfied. By chance, he saw a piece of information about getting rich on the Internet: a farmer in Taoyuan County, Hunan Province earns 2 million a year by developing porcupine farming. Subsequently, he saw a feature film about raising porcupines to get rich on CCTV. "if people can earn NT $2 million a year, why can I only earn NT $40,000 to NT $50,000?" A bold idea flashed through Li Hengsong's mind-- going back to his hometown to raise porcupine.

In April 2008, Li Hengsong and his girlfriend closed the hair salon and made a special trip to the porcupine breeding base in Taoyuan County, Hunan Province to investigate and study. Seeing groups of porcupines moving back and forth in sharp black and white thorns and buyers from all over the country driving high-end cars to place orders, Li Hengsong strengthened his idea of going back to his hometown to raise porcupines.

When I go back to my hometown, the pig house is bigger than the home.

Using his working savings, Li Hengsong borrowed tens of thousands of yuan everywhere, invested a total of more than 170000 yuan to build pig houses, and introduced 12 breeding pigs from Taoyuan County, Hunan Province, to raise porcupine. But at the beginning, Li Hengsong did not develop smoothly. In order to ease the financial pressure, he and his girlfriend opened a hair salon on the street of Zhongdu Town to make money to subsidize the farm.

In Xinping Village, many villagers have used their savings to build beautiful buildings. The author saw in Li Hengsong's house that the family still lived in a low house made of earthen walls. On the right side of the house, the porcupine breeding base covering an area of more than 120 square meters has begun to take shape, with 2 or 4 porcupines in each of the three neat rows of pig pens. "through careful breeding, the 12 breeding pigs I bought from Hunan have grown to 44." Li Hengsong said.

It's no problem to earn 800000 yuan in the coming year.

Although Li Hengsong is not yet profitable, he is confident about the future: "porcupine thorns, stomach, liver and gallbladder are all treasures." Among them, thorns can be used medicinally or processed into handicrafts, each of which can be sold for 0.8 to 1.2 yuan. After the stomach is refined, it can be made into a good medicine for the treatment of stomach diseases. On the market, the price of porcupine stomach is 100 yuan per piece; the current market price of commodity porcupine is about 160 yuan per kilogram, and each porcupine can grow to about 30 to 50 jin. It is conservatively estimated that the price of a porcupine is about 2500 yuan. "

At present, Li Hengsong's first batch of porcupines can be sold as commercial pigs, and he receives several phone calls for orders and inquiries every day. However, he is not going to sell commercial porcupine, but is going to stock a large number of breeding pigs. "it is estimated that in five years, there will be about 300 porcupine breeding pigs in my farm, and more than 700 commercial pigs can be produced every year." Li Hengsong told me, "as long as I find a hotel or restaurant in Chengdu or Chongqing and supply one porcupine a day, 360 a year, my income is very considerable." According to his budget, the annual profit is conservatively estimated to reach more than 800,000 yuan.

Extended reading

According to Li Hengsong, the feeding cost of porcupine is not high. Porcupine has strong disease resistance and will not get sick as long as the feed is properly controlled in the process of feeding. The main food of porcupine is grain. Corn, pumpkin, carrot and grass root bark are all favorite foods of porcupine. A porcupine consumes only about 5 taels of grain a day in summer and 7 taels at most in winter.