Chapter 215 It's Really a Golden Egg
Quail is an animal with high economic benefits. It starts laying eggs around 42-45 days after birth. After the female quail enters the egg-laying period, most of them will lay one egg a day, and during the peak period, they can even lay one and a half to two eggs a day.
This high level of egg production can be maintained for several months. As time goes by, the egg production rate will gradually decrease, and at this time a new batch of quails should enter the egg-laying period.
Xu Lingjun, together with Guo Chenzi, Haisheng, Dong Kuan and others, built a quail breeding shed.
Li Xiuzhi led Aunt Dong, Aunt Guo, Niu Fengying, Haisheng's wife and other women to hatch the accumulated quail eggs according to the training method, and use the anal identification method to distinguish the male and female.
The specific method is: use your left hand to hold the quail head down and the back against the palm of your hand, then use the index finger and thumb of your right hand to gently open the cloaca. If the mucous membrane of the cloaca is yellow with a small reproductive protrusion in the center, it is a male; if the mucous membrane is light black and there is no reproductive protrusion, it is a female.
This method can also be used in laying hen farming with slight changes. Male quails have lower economic value and are humanely destroyed after being identified to provide nutrition for the dogs of the production team.
At the beginning, Dahuang and Erhuang were quite happy, but after eating for a while, they couldn't bear it anymore. They ran around the quail farm when passing by. They were really hurt by the food.
Li Xiuzhi and others used scientific breeding methods and took good care of the little quails. Gradually, differences in the division of labor emerged. Aunt Guo, Aunt Dong and others were old and learned things slowly, so they could only do rough work. The slightly more delicate work fell on young people like Li Xiuzhi and Haisheng's wife.
After about a month, the first batch of quail began to lay eggs. Just as Xu Lingjun said, these little guys laid at least one egg a day. Occasionally, they would lay three eggs in two days, or even two eggs a day.
When counting the harvest every day, the smiles on the faces of these aunties and young wives never stopped, "Fifty-six, fifty-seven, seventy-four, seventy-five, ninety-two, ninety-three, one hundred and thirty-six, one hundred and thirty-seven"
"Wow, today we got almost 200 eggs, 7 cents each, 200 is 14 yuan, 14 yuan a day, 420 yuan a month, more than 5,000 yuan a year!" Haisheng's wife couldn't help but count on her fingers.
"You've calculated too little. There are two hundred eggs a day now because that's the number of quails that were hatched in the first batch. The second and third batches are almost grown up, and they will be able to lay eggs in a few days." Li Xiuzhi corrected her mistake while collecting the selected good eggs and preparing to hatch them in an incubator.
Haisheng's wife nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes, yes, next month, maybe we can collect a thousand quail eggs a day. Oh my God, wouldn't that mean seventy yuan a day? Two thousand one a month, twenty-five thousand a year! Am I right?"
She was frightened by this number. She had lived for more than 20 years, but when had she ever counted money in units of ten thousand? At home, she rarely had the opportunity to count in the hundreds.
"That's correct, but Lao Xu said that seven cents per egg is the temporary purchase price set by the local products company. If there are more and more quail eggs in the future, the price may drop a little," Li Xiuzhi reminded.
"Even if it's five cents, it's much more cost-effective than raising chickens. How much does a chicken eat a day? How much does a quail eat? A chicken can lay at most a hundred eggs a year, but a quail might lay two or three hundred! In the future, when the price drops and we increase our production, we can still make a lot of money."
"We can earn tens of thousands of yuan after working hard for a year?" Aunt Dong couldn't believe it for a moment. "Old Dong and Old Guo work so hard to herd sheep, how much can they earn in a year? So we earn more than them now?"
"Did they calculate it wrong?" Aunt Guo also found it hard to accept. In their opinion, men have always made the big money, and it's good enough for women to take care of the family and earn a little money. Why is it the other way around now?
"We should be able to earn tens of thousands of yuan," Li Xiuzhi said. "But you can't calculate it that way. Uncle Dong and Uncle Guo go up the mountain to graze their livestock, so they can save enough livestock to hand over. Otherwise, how can we have the opportunity to raise quails? And they also built this shed, so they also contributed to the tens of thousands of yuan."
The production team was responsible for production, but it was not a simple matter of dividing up pastures and livestock. They also had a task every year to hand over a certain number of cattle, sheep and horses, and only the rest were theirs, just like paying public grain for farming.
If they fail to pay the fees, the farm will take back the livestock and pasture, and they will lose the opportunity to do a side job. So even though the money earned from grazing is not as good as that from raising quails, this work cannot be neglected.
Moreover, this situation can only last for a few years. In the future, more and more people will raise quails, and the price of quail eggs will plummet. This business is far less long-lasting than raising cattle and sheep.
At the end of the month, Xu Lingjun and Guo Chenzi drove a tractor with boxes of quail eggs to the county and found Niu Guiping. He opened the box and was surprised. "You really raised them? This is a hot commodity. Many restaurants in the provincial capital have to buy them from outside at a high price. Our local product company can sell them in the provincial capital."
He counted the eggs without saying a word and accepted them. This batch of goods could not only help the local products company make money, but also make them stand out in front of their leaders. Niu Guiping was very happy.
Even more joyful things are yet to come. Xu Lingjun kept a box of quail eggs and did not sell them. He sent them directly to Niu Guiping's home. In the past two years, the sales of quail eggs mainly relied on the local products company. On the one hand, the policy had just been relaxed a little, and it was too risky to sell them outside; on the other hand, the production team also lacked talents who could make long-distance sales. Xu Lingjun already had a lot of things to do, and he was too busy to do this.
"Don't do it again, don't do it again!" Niu Guiping reminded him repeatedly before accepting the quail eggs. Xu Lingjun pretended not to hear him. When he sells quail eggs next month, he will definitely include his eggs.
Back at the production team, Xu Lingjun did the math in front of everyone, "Excluding the losses, we sold a total of 13,400 quail eggs this month, at seven cents each, for a total sales of 938 yuan. The cost was three cents each, a total of 402 yuan, so just from raising quails, we made 536 yuan this month."
“Cough cough cough!”
Guo Zizi was smoking and choked when he heard the number. "So many?"
"What's wrong? Do you look down on us women?" Aunt Dong glared at him.
"No, no, I just think this is too much money! This really is a golden egg!"
(End of this chapter)
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