A new way to cultivate turtles in Foe

Technicians are busy cleaning the pool and watering the turtle "bath" at the Jigong Foe turtle breeding base in Tianchangtun, Zhongdong Village, Huangyao Town, Hezhou, Guangxi on July 27. In the pool, crawling turtles of different ages, the technician excitedly picked up a turtle and showed it to the author.

According to technician Zhou Yongxi, the breeding base tries to maintain the environment and living habits of Foe turtles growing in the wild as far as possible. the water in the pond is used only after the spring water from the mountains is placed in the fish ponds, so that the temperature and microorganisms of the water are close to those in the wild. Feeding is mainly live fish, which not only increases the amount of exercise and promotes the growth of the turtles, but also makes the meat of the turtles delicious.

The breeding base was established in July 2013, with a total investment of more than 3 million yuan, covering an area of about 800square meters, with a breeding scale of 3500, mainly breeding turtles and selling turtle seedlings. At present, it is the largest turtle breeding base in Hezhou City.

"We have also encountered some breeding difficulties in setting up a large-scale Foe turtle farm in such an inland environment." Liu Ning, who is in charge of managing the breeding base, said that due to lack of technology, more than 100 turtles died at the initial stage of breeding, and then more than 10 species of turtles died for unknown reasons. In order to solve these problems, technicians send pictures on the communication platform of friends who breed Foe turtles to consult their predecessors from all over the country, while groping for solutions in breeding practice.

After three years of exploration and breeding, the base has sold about 2000 turtle seedlings. Calculated at the market price of 150 yuan each, the sales reached 300000 yuan, and the economic benefits of the long-term project began to appear.

The good economic benefits have attracted the interest of the surrounding people, and the surrounding 25 households have joined the team of breeding Foe turtles. The base not only provides farmers with turtle seedlings and technology, but also is responsible for recycling and selling turtle seedlings and finished turtles. "my family now has 40 turtles, and the big ones are already four or five jin!" Farmer Liu Daochuan said confidently that when turtle seedlings are produced, there will be a profit.

"the turtles we breed are not worried about the market, and orders from Guangdong and Zhejiang are increasing." According to Liu Ning, in the next step, they are going to set up a professional cooperative to increase the variety of farming, expand the scale of breeding, and radiate more people to join the breeding team.

Pan Qiuping is extracted from Hezhou Daily.