In Bach Luu commune (Song Lo, Vinh Phuc), people are willing to “eat, sleep” and take care of them as pets.
Following winding roads through undulating hillsides, we found Bach Luu commune – one of the localities located at the end of Song Lo district, Vinh Phuc province.
The village has now changed, the old four-tier houses have been replaced by flat roofs and spacious high-rise houses. About 20 years ago, the appearance of this place has been significantly improved thanks to the profession of breeding cobra.
Talking to us, Mr. Ha Van Chu – Chairman of the Veterans Association of Bach Luu commune, said that the whole commune now has more than 100 households raising snakes. Snake farming was previously considered as a secondary job.
But later on, due to the increasing demand for commercial snakes and eggs, many households invested in expanding their barns and raising the snake scale from a few dozen to several hundred, even to several thousand. .
“At the time of 2011, although I only raised a few hundred snakes, I had 700 thousand VND in the morning, a profit of 200 million VND a year. dream of many families already “, – Mr. Chu said.
Mr. Chu said, snakes are raised in two forms, that are raised in groups and single. Collective farming will be given priority when snakes hatch, to avoid conflicts between snakes. After large snakes will be raised in a single form to facilitate the care and cleaning of the barn.
The breeding season comes, each snake lays 25-30 eggs, their food is mainly toads and chicks. In winter, snakes will hibernate and do not eat for months, snake breeders can also take advantage of other things.
“Although snakes are species with very few diseases, but the hygiene and eating stage are not guaranteed, they are very susceptible to diseases such as diarrhea, lung disease …, there are waves of snakes getting sick, my whole family will die. Eating and sleeping because of worry “, – Mr. Chu shared.
Entering the snake cage, we could not help “stop heart” with hundreds of loud loud noises coming from the ground. Mr. Chu smiled and said: “Don’t worry, the barn here is very solid, make sure the snakes can’t get out”.
Then Mr. Chu opened the door of the single cage, and immediately, from the ground, a snake stuck its head, had a menacing gills and was ready to attack if we even stepped closer to it.
Mr. Chu now took the prepared iron hook and slowly hooked it to the snake’s body, brought it upwards and added: “Snake farming is always faced with danger, because this species has venom. There was also a death in the commune due to snake bites. Therefore, every household now has available medicine to treat snakebites to avoid any uncertainties “.
Although raising cobra brings high economic efficiency, but people here can not help worry because the consumer market is still largely dependent on China.
Recently, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the price of snakes has dropped to a record. In the previous time, the price of snakes was sometimes up to 1.2 million VND / kg, and commercial snakes fluctuated around 700-750 thousand VND / kg. kg. So far, the price of snake seed is only 150-200 thousand VND / kg, the commercial commodity is only 230 thousand VND / kg.
“There is a family raising nearly 2000 commercial snakes, it is time to sell, but still have to lie still in the barn to hope the price will stabilize again, if sold at this time it could lose a few hundred million. As for my family, I raised a little, a few days ago, I sold more than 1 quintal, lost 40-50 million VND, but still had to accept “, – Mr. Chu said.
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