Once a nurse at a hospital in Da Nang, Mr. Dung decided to quit his job to raise “black gold” in his pond and build a local snail brand.
Throw all the gold into the pond
Mr. Tran Van Dung (38 years old, residing in Hoa Phu commune, Hoa Vang district, Da Nang) graduated from the Intermediate School of Medicine and Pharmacy (now Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy), then worked as a nurse at the Hospital. Da Nang Dermatology Institute.
A few years ago, Mr. Dung realized that the golden apple snail was causing serious damage to crops, while the traditional black apple snail was decreasing.
“Why don’t we try raising this specialty species?”, Mr. Dung asked and began to learn about how to raise this aquatic species.
In 2019, he decided to quit his medical job, go home and borrow money to build a snail tank. In the early days, he traveled everywhere to learn more about snail farming techniques in canvas-lined tanks. The first batch was sold, he earned a profit of several tens of millions of dong.
Too “hungry”, so in the next round of stocking, he decided to raise more. But then that same “desire” caused him to receive bitter consequences when snails died en masse, due to the density of snails in the pond being too thick.
Mr. Dung rented 3 earthen ponds more than 4km from his house, spending tons of gold (about more than 100 million VND) to invest in establishing a new ecosystem. He dredged the old pond, added minerals, then added water for treatment and raised moss to help filter the water and add food sources for snails.
He also goes out to collect water hyacinths, plant water lilies, and build trellises to grow luffa to create a natural shelter and proactively provide food sources for snails. In each pond he stocked 180,000 breeds. Because he was far away, he also installed cameras to monitor everywhere and at all times.
At first, some people who did not understand the situation criticized him for doing “nothing good” things, quitting his job and spending a large amount of money to raise snails. But after 3 months, the snails matured and were sold for high profits. Everyone was amazed and fascinated by the big, round, fat animals.
For nearly a year, Mr. Dung’s ponds have been stable. On average, every 3 months, he sells tons of snails and earns hundreds of millions of dong. This amount of money will be invested in farming ponds, with plans to expand the scale to 1 hectare.
The sun is smiling, the rain is feverish
Talking for a while, the man with sunburned skin walked around the pond, occasionally picking up a few snails that were clinging to the roots to check. “If the snail has a problem, it must be handled immediately, but to affect the whole pond, it cannot be saved,” Dung explained.
According to Mr. Dung, to successfully raise this snail, farmers must have eyes to “see the water” to control the pH level, as well as to see if the water source is polluted or not.
Mr. Dung takes advantage of water sources from canals and irrigation ditches flowing from Dong Xanh and Dong Nghe lakes in Hoa Vang district, so he has to watch to prevent water from entering the lake when farmers spray pesticides on rice, just “carelessly” for a minute. will be empty-handed.
“Snail farmers look at the heavy rain and feel worried, unable to sit still,” Mr. Dung confided and said that after the historic rain in October 2022 in Da Nang, the water overflowed the banks, 2/3 of the snails in his pond He crawled out, the rest gradually died because the water environment suddenly changed pH.
Mr. Dung said that raising black snails in tarpaulin tanks is profitable but very little because of the high cost, while raising them in earthen ponds is easier, the growth cycle is about 3 months before being sold. If you want to keep them as breeders, keep them for another 2-3 months so that the snails reach a large size.
Snail food is easy to find in the natural environment such as duckweed, duckweed, green vegetables, cassava leaves, water hyacinth, guava, luffa… Snails are usually fed once a day to avoid excess food causing damage. water pollution. With 180,000 current breeds, Mr. Dung spends more than 50kg of food every day.
“Snail farming is easy but not leisurely,” Mr. Dung confided and explained that if you want delicious snails, you must take meticulous care of them from the pond. And it is important to be self-sufficient in good, clean food sources so that the snails can be harvested with quality.
With a stable model of black apple snail farming, Mr. Dung is always a “friend” with local and foreign traders. He sells snails for 70,000-80,000 VND/kg. He also sells eggs and breeds to other farmers.
In the long term, Mr. Dung cherishes to build his own brand of clean snails, including clean black snail products, snail rolls and kitchen snails. With these products, he hopes to connect to the local and regional clean food supply chains.
($1=24,000 VND)
Photo,Video: Internet (Vinlove.net)