You don't have to hire anyone to raise cattle and take care of 60 heads.

Lei Daigui is feeding the cattle.

Recently, the reporter came to the Daigui farm, which is located in Tuanbao Village, Guojia Town. Lei Daigui, the person in charge, is feeding cattle in the bullpen.

Lei Daigui pushed a vat full of forage into the barn, dozens of fat cattle poked their heads out to "moo", and several calves born more than a month were alive.

By this year, Lei Daigui's family has been raising cattle for six years, their income has been rising year after year, and they are also well-known in the beef cattle farming industry in Kaixian and surrounding counties.

Raise the best beef cattle

In 2009, the Lei Daigui family began to raise cattle.

"in the past, the whole family relied on working to earn money, but working is to serve others, and to start a business is to take care of yourself." Lei Daigui said that after consultation, the family decided to use their working savings to develop beef cattle farming.

"if you want to raise cattle, you should raise the best, not those native cattle with poor meat and slow growth." Lei Daigui said that before she started raising cattle, she went to the Internet to find information, select a good breed of beef cattle, and then went to the surrounding districts and counties or Hebei, Jilin and other places to buy breeding cattle or calves to raise.

"one is to choose the best breed, and the other is to choose the best-growing and healthiest cattle in this herd." The task of going out to buy cattle is usually taken care of by Hou Renquan, father-in-law of Lei Daigui. In order to buy desirable cows or calves, they are willing to spend money. Except for repairing cattle pens, the rest of the family's savings are used to buy cattle.

At first, only more than 10 cattle were raised. Today, there are more than 40 commercial cattle and more than 20 cows in Lei Daigui's farm, mainly beef cattle with fast growth, good meat quality and high meat yield, such as Charolais, Simmental, and Haiford. More than 40 commercial cattle are produced a year, and dozens of calves are sold.

"all commercial cattle are sold to the county. Compared with the surrounding places, the price of beef cattle in Kaixian County is the highest, because people in Kaixian County like to eat fresh beef, and it doesn't matter if the price is a little higher." Lei Daigui said that because of her good breed and meat quality, both commercial cattle and calves are in short supply. Not long ago, some farmers in Guang'an, Sichuan and Guizhou bought dozens of calves.

"the smallest commercial cattle fed for a year or so is 1000 jin. Now the market price in Kaixian County is 12 yuan per jin. Excluding the cost, a cow can earn at least 3000 yuan a year. A calf can be sold for at least 6000 yuan after feeding for five or six months. " Lei Daigui said that the annual net income is at least 200000 yuan.

The whole family has a clear division of labor.

Lei Daigui's farm keeps more than 60 cattle all the year round, but they don't hire a single worker.

In order to raise the cattle well, the Lei Daigui family carried out a clear division of labor. Father-in-law Hou Renquan had rich experience in selecting cattle and was mainly responsible for buying and selling cattle. She and her mother-in-law Cheng Jingju were responsible for feeding the cattle. Her husband, Hou Xiangjun, was young and strong, and was mainly responsible for the manual work of the farm.

"his main job is to pick cow dung, and he picked 11 this morning." Lei Daigui said with a smile that raising cattle is easier than raising pigs and sheep. It doesn't take much time to process forage. The hardest work is picking out cow dung. Her husband is responsible for picking out cow dung and pouring it into a septic tank every day. The biogas produced can be used at least one can of liquefied gas a month. After the cow dung is rotten, it is picked into the field to grow yellow bamboo grass, vegetables or corn that feed cattle.

"We have a reasonable division of labor, raising cattle is relatively easy, and we don't need to hire workers." Lei Daigui says that now the wages of workers are high, and it is not cost-effective to ask workers to raise cattle, as long as the whole family works together. "of course, family harmony is the key, and harmony makes money!"

Provide sufficient fodder

When talking about why he chose to raise cattle and what tricks he had in raising cattle, Lei Daigui said that the market of beef in Kaixian County has always been good, but the overall scale of beef farming is not large, and demand often falls short of supply.

"in recent years, the prices of pigs and sheep have risen and fallen from time to time, and the market is not very stable, while the price of beef cattle has been relatively high and stable." Lei Daigui said that raising cattle in Kaixian County is not worried about the market.

"with the market, as long as you raise the cattle well, you can make money." Lei Daigui says that cattle are large animals, with strong adaptability and disease resistance, and are easy to raise. "in fact, the trick is very simple, that is, there must be food."

As long as there is food, it sounds very simple, but in fact it is not easy. According to Lei Daigui, although cattle are not picky about food, they eat a lot, and a cow has to eat at least 5000 yuan of feed a year, so finding enough forage to feed dozens of cattle every day is also a heavy burden.

"We do not buy special feed, first, the cost is high, and second, the beef fed by the feed is not as good as the meat fed with grass and grain." Lei Daigui said that one of the important reasons for the good meat quality of her cattle is to insist on feeding grass and food.

"We crush the bamboo grass, vegetables, corn stalks and so on, and then mix the corn flour to feed it." Lei Daigui said that the yield of Phyllostachys pubescens is high and the protein content is high. Now her family has planted more than 8 mu of bamboo grass, as well as some vegetables and corn.

"of course, it's not enough to feed dozens of cows by growing your own food." Lei Daigui said that when the corn is harvested every year, my father-in-law and her husband drive to the nearby farmers' homes to cut corn stalks. "as long as they are close to the road, we cut all the corn stalks in their homes to feed the cattle."

"as long as the cattle are fed, a big problem will be solved." Hou Renquan said that another key problem is to do a good job in disease prevention and treatment. As long as you see a cow with a runny nose or other symptoms, you should buy medicine immediately. He can solve some common diseases of cattle, and generally does not need to call a veterinarian.

"in addition, the staff of the town's animal husbandry and veterinary station are also very responsible and have to come to the farm on time every month to get vaccinations and guide us to carry out epidemic prevention work." Lei Daigui said that since raising cattle, not a single cow in her family has died of illness.

Expand the scale after transformation

Last year, Lei Daigui participated in the micro-enterprise training organized by the County Bureau of Industry and Commerce and learned a lot of management experience.

"later, we invested more than 40,000 yuan to standardize the transformation of the farm, so that the enclosure, environmental protection, epidemic prevention and other aspects to meet higher requirements." Lei Daigui said that after the transformation of the farm, she registered micro-enterprises, so she also received more than 20,000 yuan of micro-enterprise subsidies.

"more than 20,000 yuan can be regarded as a solution to our urgent needs." Lei Daigui said that the investment in raising cattle is relatively large, and she has always wanted to make the scale a little bigger, but she lacks liquidity.

"I hope the government can give more support to the financing of the aquaculture industry. As long as the problem of capital bottleneck is solved, it will be easy to turn small enterprises into large ones." Lei Daigui said with a smile.