Liu Jiu, wearing an apron, was making feed with several hired pig farmers.
To put it simply, it means crushing corn stalks.
The straw is crushed into powder and mixed with soybean cake, fish meal and salt and premix in a certain proportion to make the feed.
Straw is not all corn straw, there is also soybean straw.
These straws were collected with money and piled up into a very tall and large haystack on the open space to the north of the pig farm.
This reminded Wan Feng of his previous life when he worked at the Lanshan Township dairy farm, where there was also such a huge haystack.
Liu Jiu, who was working, turned around and saw Wan Feng. He said a few words to the workers and then walked out of the straw crushing shed where he was working.
He took off his hat with a shawl, dusted himself off, and walked towards Wanfeng while taking out a cigarette.
"Uncle Liu! You don't make that kind of bagged feed?"
When Liu Jiu walked in front of Wan Feng, the cigarette had already been lit, and wisps of green smoke were rising in the sunlight at 8:30 in the morning.
"We haven't done it yet. Shengguang and I decided to do a one-year trial. We've made feeds with various raw materials, feeding each pig group with one type of feed. We've recorded the cost of the feed, the pigs' growth and disease resistance, and so on in detail. After a year of feeding, we'll have firsthand information. That way, next year, we can make feed for ourselves and sell it to others."
This idea is more practical.
It is a safe approach to start after you have a clear idea of the situation, which is more in line with the characteristics of farmers' investment.
After Liu Jiu finished explaining, he pulled Wan Feng to a pigpen.
There are five pigs in this pigpen. They are relatively small, weighing about 100 kilograms, which was a bit beyond Wan Feng's expectations.
A pig that's been raised for six or seven months is this small? Is it still in time to sell such a small pig for the New Year?
The pigs in the pigsty had just finished their breakfast and were now lying all over the place. When they saw the people coming, some of them looked up and grunted a few times, some stared at them with dead eyes, and some simply lay on the concrete floor pretending to be dead without even looking at them.
"The seven pens here are all filled with piglets we brought in over two months ago. These are experimental pigs in addition to the 200 we initially raised, and they've been fed feed from the start. This pen uses feed number one, which we mix like this: 60 kilograms of cornmeal, 20 kilograms of soybean cake, 18 kilograms of fine bran, 5 ounces of salt, 1 kilogram of bone meal, 1 kilogram of shellfish powder, and 5 ounces of premix. We feed them three times a day."
Then he went to the next pigpen: "The five pigs in this pen are fed feed number two. This is a different feed formula. The formula is as follows: 50 kilograms of cornmeal, 30 kilograms of straw powder, 10 kilograms of bean cake, 8 kilograms of roasted soybean powder, 1 kilogram of bone meal, 1 kilogram of shellfish powder, 5 ounces of salt, and 5 ounces of premix."
Wan Feng nodded.
Feeding different pig herds with feeds of different formulas can help us find out which formula of feed has a short growth period and a high market rate for pigs.
Next, Liu Jiu introduced the remaining five pig pens. The pigs in each pen were fed the same feed separately. The sizes of the pigs were not the same. The largest one weighed about 150 kilograms, and the smallest one weighed only about 100 kilograms.
"We're using these 35 pigs in these six pens purely for experimentation, to see if they can reach marketable weight in four months. It seems the pigs on feed types 3 and 5 will easily reach over 250 kilograms by Chinese New Year, and the rest will probably be just over 200 kilograms."
Two hundred kilograms of pork is relatively tender and tastes bland, so most people don't like it.
But some people like to eat this kind of pork, which is considered to be the weight suitable for slaughter.
Wan Feng appreciated their down-to-earth approach of moving forward step by step.
"Through experiments, we plan to focus on launching feed No. 3 and No. 5 next year. Pigs can be ready for slaughter in four or five months, so there should be a market for them."
"There's definitely a market for it. Go for it. Maybe in two years you'll be specializing in animal feed and won't even need to raise pigs anymore."
Pork prices have been rising rapidly in the past two years, and pig farming will soon become a shortcut for farmers to get rich.
However, it is impossible to slaughter pigs in just four or five months if we rely on the traditional pig farming methods. If we want to slaughter pigs quickly and turn them over quickly, feeding them with feed is the best option.
In the north, Liu Shengguang and Liu Jiu are considered to be the first to take the plunge. As long as they manage the business well, they will be able to succeed. As for the scale to which they can develop, that depends on their fate.
After looking at these little pigs, Wan Feng went to see the big pigs that had been raised for more than half a year.
These big pigs generally weigh around 230 to 240 kilograms, and are estimated to reach 270 to 280 kilograms by the end of the year. The big ones may even weigh over 300 kilograms.
"Have any of you pigs come in to make reservations now?"
"Yes! There aren't enough! The chain factory in Dongshan ordered five, the wheel rim factory in Nandawan ordered five, the axle factory ordered six, and your uncle's factory ordered four. They said they have a New Year's Day dinner party, so almost all of them are sold out now. There's no more left."
These foodies didn't even leave any for him.
A small factory is good. Wan Shuiming's small factory has more than a hundred people, and they can cook about four pigs at a time.
If his Nanwan Group were to hold a banquet now, forty pigs would not be enough.
After visiting the pig farm, Wan Feng was about to set off for Heijiao, so he said goodbye to Liu Jiu and Liu Shengguang.
It was already past nine o'clock when the car arrived at Heijiao Township. Wan Feng first went to the township government to find Zhang Wencai.
Zhang Wencai is the village head and also the head of the development zone. Of course, Wan Feng would go to him if he wanted to know about the development zone.
Unfortunately, Zhang Wencai was not in the township government. Someone told Wan Feng that Zhang Wencai had gone to the Wuquan Development Zone.
Wuquan Development Zone is not far from Shanatou, where the Heijiao Township Government is located. It is only about ten miles away and it takes more than ten minutes to drive to Wuquan.
Zhang Wencai’s task before the New Year was to let people in the relocation area know the relocation policy and make preparations for the relocation.
The government arranged unified housing for these relocated households in the neighboring Yushan Village and Yutun Village, and compensated for the losses of land and houses.
The houses are valued at an estimated price, which is usually much higher than the cost of the house at the time, and the compensation is a certain amount of money per acre of land.
If any of them want to work in enterprises in the development zone in the future, they will be given priority.
People born in the 1990s were relatively simple-minded, and there was no one who jumped out to hinder the relocation when the state provided land and compensation.
Zhang Wencai's work is relatively smooth. His current job is to provide these relocated households with homesteads in the relocation areas designated by the government.
After the homestead is allocated, the relocated households will lay the foundation before the freezing weather and start building houses next spring.
When Wan Feng found him, Zhang Wencai was standing with his hands behind his back, pointing and gesturing at a piece of land in Yushan Village.
This is where these relocated households will settle down.
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