Freezing Point Special Issue No. 1220
Graduated from college to raise pigs
"I'll give you 7000 yuan a month. The daily work is to feed pigs, sweep manure, pick up rotten pigs, use dangerous chemical disinfectants...Can you accept it?"
Eight days after joining the company, 24-year-old Zhang Yao wrote this question on a social network platform.
Last September, Zhang Yao graduated from a postgraduate major in food engineering in a university.
He missed the recruitment of his counterpart company, and after consideration, he accepted an invitation from an agricultural and animal husbandry company for the position of "management trainee".
This is a relatively high-paying job, including food and housing, starting with an annual salary of 180,000 yuan for graduate students.
In 2018, when African swine fever was introduced to China, the number of pigs in China dropped sharply, and pork prices soared.
Pig-raising companies such as Zhengbang Group, Wen's Co., Ltd., and Muyuan Co., Ltd. have expanded their breeding scales, expanded new farms, and extensively recruited college students to meet the needs of modern breeding.
This job has high salaries and good remuneration, but there is no glamorous working environment, and the work content is not easy.
The recruitment notice clearly states that rural children are given priority.
Some people were stopped by family members after being hired, and others decided to "run away" after shoveling pig shit in the pig house for an hour.
Some people who have persisted have sincerely persuaded them to leave on the Internet: "Those who can't bear loneliness, can't stand the cold, can't endure hardship, and those who don't adjust well should be cautious."
1
In July last year, after graduating from computer science, Li Di went to a pig farm in Yingde, Qingyuan, Guangdong to report.
The reason that attracted him to the pig farm was money.
Last summer, an agricultural and animal husbandry company issued recruitment notices in many colleges and universities, recruiting management trainees, breeding production technology and management, animal husbandry engineering, feed marketing and other positions for full-time college graduates and above from 2019 to 2021. Some positions need to start from first-line pig raising.
Salary includes basic salary, year-end bonus, job bonus, equity, etc. The comprehensive salary for undergraduates in the first year of entry is 120,000-200,000 yuan, for master's degree is 180,000-300,000 yuan, and for doctoral degree, it is starting from 300,000 yuan.
Li Di graduated from a non-key undergraduate college in Guangzhou. He thinks his grades are not good enough and his employment environment is affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic. Small Internet companies in Guangzhou pay him less than 3,000 yuan a month.
In contrast, the work of raising pigs with a basic salary of 6,000 yuan and including food and accommodation is too attractive.
The career development space of pig raising also impressed him.
In order to train college student cadres, Li Di’s company has launched the “180 Training Program”. In 180 days, through theoretical study and practical teaching, he can be promoted from breeder to technician, team leader, and branch manager. Salary increase.
When Li Di was a child, he used to raise pigs at home, and he knew the smell.
Before entering the site, the old staff joked and frightened him, saying that after a long time in the pig house, they would be "salted". The smell of pig dung could no longer be washed away, and the bus would smoke others away.
Upon entering the pig farm, Li Di found that the modern pig house here was completely different from the pig pens he had seen in the countryside.
Each pig house occupies an area of eight or nine hundred square meters, and a positioning fence with a length of 2 meters, a width of 0.65 meters and a height of 1 meter is arranged in 6 rows between the aisles. There is one pig and one pen, and more than 300 pigs are neatly arranged.
Each pig’s ear is nailed with an ear tag, and a serial number is marked on it. Each serial number corresponds to an exclusive file of the information management system.
Unlike the “take a scoop to scoop pig food” at home, the automated feeding system allows Li Di to feed more than 40 pigs at a time.
The smell of the pig farm was better than he expected.
The floor is covered with slatted boards, so pig urine will not accumulate.
The pig house is equipped with a negative pressure fan and a water curtain that cools down by water evaporation and heat absorption. The temperature is controlled at about 20 degrees Celsius, the humidity does not exceed 70%, and the air is circulating.
As long as you don't stand at the vent, the smell is not too great.
Deng Yuheng, who works at a pig farm in Hunan, also decided to raise pigs to make money.
He studied communications engineering at university, and "has been very confused" after graduating in 2019.
He jumped from the construction machinery manufacturing industry to a state-owned enterprise from 8 to 4, and resigned and went home to prepare for a civilian post in the army.
After a few months of leisure, the salary saved before was only a few thousand yuan.
With the increasing pressure in life, he finally decided to raise pigs and save some money.
He was mentally prepared to "endure hardship".
In a game session of the military training before entering the job, the leader brought two big bags of pig dung and asked everyone to dig 250 grams into a carton, and the one with the closest weight won.
Newcomers in the workplace can choose from three methods: small shovel, gloves and bare hands. Wearing gloves allows 10 grams of error, and bare hands allows 20 grams of error.
Deng Yuheng regarded this as the first hurdle of pig raising work, "As a person who wants to raise pigs in the future, how can he persuade this?" He did not hesitate to choose bare hands.
Sure enough, after entering the pig farm to work, he has to deal with pig manure every day.
Standing up while the pigs were eating food and drinking water, Deng Yuheng needed to quickly use a manure rake to scrape the manure from the pig pen into the aisle, and sweep it into the manure tank underneath through the manure leakage hole in the slat plate.
Experienced breeders can understand the health of pigs through the shape of pig manure. Small particles may be constipation, and too thin may cause inflammation.
Patrol fence is also one of the daily tasks.
Deng Yuheng never thought that one day he would pay attention to the eyes of pigs. Once a pig was found to have dull eyes, dim coat color, and loss of appetite, he would mark it, take a temperature measurement, and then prescribe the right medicine.
Once, he was going to take the body temperature of an uneaten pig.
As soon as the thermometer was inserted into the pig's anus, the pig suddenly diarrhea, and the fecal water sprayed his leg.
"Human adaptability is very strong." Li Di sighed.
When he first entered the pig house, he followed the farmer through the aisle between the pig pens.
Pig heads were constantly arching outwards on both sides, rubbing saliva on his pants, he carefully shrank on the center line of the aisle, and "made a fuss" when he was touched by a pig.
After patrolling down dozens of times a day, he can already walk through the pigs leisurely, touching the pigs' noses from time to time, "It feels like those pigs are like tables, chairs and benches at home."
2
Different from fattening farms that sell pigs, the farms where Li Di and Deng Yuheng are located are breeding farms that raise sows and produce and sell piglets.
The farm is equipped with a breeding house, a farrowing house, a reserve house and a boar station.
Here, the sow is a veritable "fertility machine".
Their job is to conceive and give birth back and forth, with a cycle of 142 days, they are bred after estrus, piglets are delivered after 114 days of gestation, and weaned at 28 days.
Generally, within a week after weaning, sows can be in heat again, and then enter the next reproductive cycle.
The relatively narrow positioning fence prevents the sows from turning around freely, avoiding fights and collisions, and can only raise the fetus quietly.
After three or four years of birth, older sows are replaced by young gilts.
Over-age pigs and pigs that have not been in heat for one or two months will be eliminated from the breeding farm as hogs.
Because piglets have been born, their meat is not firm and the price is relatively cheap.
These sows will never have the opportunity to mate naturally throughout their lives.
There are two or three boars in each breeding barn. They are tall and mighty, have a lot of saliva, and have a heavy smell, but the sows can only look at them.
In order to induce the sows to come into estrus as soon as possible, Li Di would drive the boars to walk slowly outside the sow pen, at most allowing them to make mouth-to-mouth contact in the stall.
Two or three boars will take turns to play so that the sows will not suffer from aesthetic fatigue.
Riding a pig is a necessary skill for working in the arbor, Li Di wants to simulate the boar's movements to ride the sow.
After confirming that the sow is in heat, he transfers the boar semen in the bag from the boar station to the reproductive tract of the sow to complete the artificial insemination.
On the fourth penultimate day before delivery, pregnant sows that have been rinsed will be rushed to the farrowing house, also called the farrowing room.
"It is equivalent to the obstetrics and gynecology department of a hospital." said Zhang Yao, who works in a farrowing house on a pig farm in Hubei.
The farrowing bed here is more spacious than the positioning bar in the feeding barn. The sows can be fed on their sides. The positioning frame of the farrowing bed is equipped with bumpers to prevent the piglets from being crushed or injured by the sow.
The temperature in the delivery room is maintained at 25-28 degrees Celsius, equipped with heating lamps and hot air blowers.
In order to prevent the piglets from catching cold, the floor slats must be covered with wooden boards to block the cool air in the manure tank.
After Zhang Yao came to the pig farm, he became a midwife for the sow.
A sow usually gives birth to a dozen piglets in a litter, and it takes 3-4 hours.
Zhang Yao has seen 34 births the most.
When the sow is difficult to give birth, especially if the first child is not good, Zhang Yao will lightly step on the sow’s belly to help it. Sometimes the sow is weak, or the piglet is dead in the mother’s belly, he has to reach out and take out the piglet. .
His work also includes postpartum care of sows, cleaning up dirt and blood stains, disinfection, anti-inflammatory injections, and feeding health medicines.
In order to give the sows "nourish the vitality", he also mixes motherwort in their feed.
The piglets were weaned more than 20 days after they were born, and the sows in the farrowing room were driven back to the breeding shed for the next round of estrus and breeding.
3
Young people follow the master, the daily work of the pig farm is not difficult to get started, but it is common to get hurt.
"When scraping manure, be sure to hold the manure rake diagonally, and the speed must be fast." Li Di said.
The most serious situation he had heard was that when a keeper's elder sister was cleaning pig manure, the sow suddenly kicked back, and the hand of the dung rake broke the eldest sister's rib.
Deng Yuheng has met several times. The sow smashed the stall and ran into the aisle for a stroll, and some pigs persistently turned around in the stall and turned their buttocks to the trough.
Once, a pig trying to escape from prison jumped halfway and got stuck on the railing. His colleague went to rescue him. The pig became irritable and kicked a bruise on his colleague's stomach.
Deng Yuheng likes to drive pigs between the delivery house and the farrowing house. A few people hold the baffle to drive a group of pigs mightily. It is a "combining parkour, hitting, collision and other multi-element decompression fitness exercise."
Even in this job, which is considered the most lively and fun, it is difficult to avoid the risk of being trampled on a few feet by two or three hundred catties of sows.
It is difficult to inject pigs.
Li Di sometimes injects antibacterial and anti-inflammatory drugs such as penicillin and aminopyrine into the three fingers behind the ears.
As soon as the sow shakes her head, the needle tube will leave a scratch on his right ring finger.
Because of repeated scraping, the wound did not heal for a long time.
Sometimes it is a pig that is injured.
Deng Yuheng once gave a pig three consecutive injections.
The first time he entered, the pig struggled and the needle crooked.
The syringe was locked before the second potion was injected, and the injection was not finished until the third time.
Every time the pig bleeds after an injection, he can feel that he and the pig are panicked.
Later, he decided to practice more: "It's not about beating yourself, what's the fear!"
The danger to the pig farm also comes from sodium hydroxide.
It is commonly known as caustic soda, which is a cheap and easy-to-use sterilization and disinfection product, which is corrosive to the skin.
The pig house has high requirements for disinfection. It is necessary to spray caustic soda water in the aisle according to the proportion of 3%, or directly sprinkle a thin layer of caustic soda. Once the bare skin is touched, it will feel burning, so you have to rinse it with water immediately .
"Be sure to wear water boots. If you walk directly into the aisle, that foot will be gone." Li Di said.
Even if it is required to wear goggles, rubber gloves and other protective equipment when using caustic soda, people are often injured by it.
Someone took a photo of a colleague who entered the eyes of caustic soda and wanted to post the photo to a social platform, "because the picture was too bloody" and failed to pass the review.
There are also jobs that are not dangerous but unacceptable.
Zhang Yao was in the delivery room and had to kill while delivering the baby.
Some piglets are born thin and can't get milk, or take medicine and injections after they are sick, and they won't work, and they will be disposed of.
This process is cruel.
In the beginning, Zhang Yao used the heels of long rubber shoes to step on the pigs' heads until they didn't move anymore.
Although he had been killing chickens at home since he was a child, he still couldn't bear it.
Later, he learned a less intuitive method from a colleague. First he lifted the piggy and fell into a faint, then stuffed it into the bag.
In addition, in the pig farm, one of the inevitable tasks is to clean up the carcasses.
Li Di once took care of a sow with paralyzed hind limbs. He mixed the feed with water and took a shovel to feed it bite by bite. A month later, it actually stood up.
Such miracles are rare. More often, the breeder can only watch the uneaten pigs become thinner, and the injections are not effective, and finally die in the pen.
To collect the corpse, first sample the snout and anus of the dead pig for testing. Then the pig is wrapped with a wire rope and transported to the corpse tank with a small trailer, and the aisles and stalls must be disinfected.
Sometimes, the carcass of a dead pig will turn blue-yellow, and the stomach will rot and ferment to produce gas, which will make the belly bulge. It may explode at any time. Be careful when dragging the pig to death.
In the delivery room with higher temperature, Zhang Yao's corpse collection is more difficult.
There were two to three thousand little piglets in the delivery room, some of them got out of the pen and died in the corners that were not noticed. When they were discovered two days later, their bodies had already decomposed.
"The carcass of the pig farm is a mixture of rotten smell and sour smell." Zhang Yao described this smell as being more "sour and refreshing" than the smell of the freezer containing rotting raw maggot pork he had brushed when he was at school.
The piglet that has just died is the best one to pick up, and it can be picked up and bagged.
When it rots to a certain extent, it may break into two pieces when picked up. Some rot will turn into a pile of slag sticking to the ground, and it will be scattered by other pigs.
Zhang Yao had to rest after working for a while. It took nearly an hour to clean up the corpses. He would retire on the way back to the dormitory from the pig house after get off work.
4
From a certain perspective, the relatively high salary of pig farm work is in exchange for freedom.
At the time of registration, Li Di took the high-speed train from Guangzhou to Qingyuan, then took a bus to the town, and then took a motorcycle to the pig farm in the "gully".
Due to disease prevention and control and environmental needs, pig farms are often located in remote places, keeping a certain distance from main traffic lines and residential areas.
The pig farm itself is also a closed environment.
It took Li Di five or six days from arriving at the guard room to entering the pig house to see the pigs.
After testing for the African swine fever virus, he has to go through three levels of decontamination and isolation. He undergoes full disinfection for 180 seconds naked, and puts on the disinfected clothes in the pig farm after bathing. Electronic products such as mobile phones and computers are passed through alcohol and ozone. disinfect.
At each isolation point and functional area in the pig farm, the staff wear work clothes of different colors, and they can only move in the area corresponding to the color when wearing work clothes of one color.
You have to take a bath when you enter and leave the pig house production area, and Deng Yuheng washes it up to 6 times a day.
Meat products, dairy products and high-fat foods cannot be brought into the venue.
The chocolates, biscuits and meringues that Deng Yuheng bought were burned because they contained milk powder.
Zhang Yao went out on vacation, and the first thing he did was to eat spicy food like crazy.
Vacation is not easy.
Although the pig farm stipulates a four-day holiday a month, it will take another five or six days to decontaminate and quarantine after leaving the pig farm. Generally, everyone works continuously for three or four months, and then takes a one-time vacation of more than 10 days.
In addition, the pig farm has a monthly closing fee of 800 yuan and a full attendance bonus of 200 yuan. Going out means giving up these income.
Li Di is fortunate that he is relatively "residential" and has no desire for urban life, so he can hold it back.
Before he came to the pig farm, his hobbies were cooking and watching TV series, and games were "not playing".
The living area of the pig farm is equipped with a basketball court, table tennis table, billiard table and other facilities. After get off work at 6 or 7 in the evening, everyone can play ball to relieve boredom.
The pig farm is easy to save money. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, toiletries, quilts, and work clothes are all provided on the farm.
Shampoo and shower gel are common "two-in-one" products in Express Hotel. After washing, the hair is dry and dry. He doesn't have much expenditure except for the funds lost in Alipay.
The most extreme case of enclosed pig farms is isolation in pig houses.
When encountering the epidemic prevention and control virus, people can't go back to the living area to rest. They can only bring a mobile phone, eat, drink, sleep and stay with the pigs, without seeing the sun for many days.
Three meals a day were delivered to the door of the pig house. Li Di listened to the pig's cry and ate with the smell of pig shit every day.
The work clothes are hand-washed by themselves and left under the fan, which will bring a faint smell of pig manure.
Li Di lived in the pig house for more than two months. When the conditions were bad, he directly took a wooden board and put it on the empty pig pen to sleep. Later, he had a metal frame bed, which could be moved to the aisle to keep a little distance from the pig.
Even so, he has to move the rubber shoes to the bottom of the bed when he sleeps, otherwise the splashed urine from the pig's defecation will splash on his shoes.
After eating, pigs sleep better than people.
As long as Li Di doesn't make any noise to the pigs, the only things that accompany him at night are the running of the fan and the undulating breathing of more than 300 sows.
After boiling a bucket of water with a quick hot rod, Li Di took a bath in the aisle behind the pig. The left side was facing a row of pig butts, and the right was also a row of pig butts.
Sometimes, he can find himself a bathing cubicle.
There is a large pen in the pig house. The function is to allow sick pigs to be "hospitalized" alone. When no pigs are sick, Li Di puts himself in for a bath.
The technical requirements for going to the toilet are higher.
Zhang Yao's technique is to "press water spray."
Take the manure rake and open the slatted board. If the water in the manure tank is deep, he has to squat and squat his butt and gently shit, otherwise the sow and piglet's urine will be splashed.
The choice of timing is also very important.
The pig is safe when lying down. Once Zhang Yao sees a pig standing up around him, he must be ready to lift his pants and move his position at any time.
5
The traditional mode of raising pigs is mainly to feed pigs with feed, and the breeder's cultural level is relatively low.
Under the threat of diseases such as African swine fever, the pig industry has increasingly higher requirements for infrastructure and disease prevention and control, and pig farms with substandard technologies have to withdraw from the market.
According to the "National Pig Industry Development Plan (2016-2025)" issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the pig industry will continue to promote standardized scale breeding, and develop towards the industrial Internet and ecological breeding.
The pig industry has entered the stage of modern breeding, and the fundamental driving force for its development is technology.
Relying solely on the technology and experience of the older generation can no longer meet the needs of scientific breeding, and major pig breeding companies have begun to focus on highly educated talents.
In 2019, Muyuan Group recruited "elite management trainees" at Fudan University and offered a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan for undergraduate students and 22,000 yuan for master students.
In 2020, Zhengbang Group will also recruit 25,000 college students nationwide.
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China's pork production ranks first in the world.
China is both a big pork consumer and a big pig raising country.
Participating in pig raising is not only specialized pig breeding companies.
Since Netease CEO Ding Lei announced in 2009 to raise pigs, giants such as Wanda, Evergrande, and Vanke have successively launched "pig farms". Wuhan Iron and Steel Group and Shanxi Coking Coal have also participated in cross-border games.
In recent years, "pet pigs" have also become popular.
Some merchants bought Bama fragrant pig cubs in pink and black, and opened the "Luzhu Pavilion" in the mall.
When he came to the pig farm for more than a month, Deng Yuheng chatted with a female high school classmate. The other party was a civil servant in the city and asked what he was doing.
Deng Yuheng was taken aback and said, "Working."
"The view at the time was still a bit narrow." He recalled.
He felt embarrassed about the work on the pig farm.
Outside of his family, he only told a close friend in the university.
Li Di understood this feeling.
He didn't even tell his parents that he was raising pigs.
Every time he contacted by phone, he always came up with a few words, "I'm a very good person at the construction site, don't worry, the money is enough."
His parents expect him to become a teacher.
They admire the stability of the teaching profession, and there are weekends and winter and summer vacations.
Li Di knew that in the eyes of his parents, pig raising was a low-level job that was discriminated against, and he didn't want to spend time explaining the technical application and management mode of modern pig farms.
Some time ago, a doctor of Chinese Academy of Sciences whose thesis thanked him, which was popular all over the Internet, resonated with him.
"The suffering of the queen can still be overcome, and the dignity of the front is extremely fragile." This sentence is particularly in line with Li Di's mood at the time.
He feels that it takes a certain amount of economic strength to survive in society with peace of mind, and the feeling of being left out will make him panic.
In order to make money, it is not a problem to suffer silently in the pig farm, but I don't want my family to know.
However, the "bottom line" for making money is to castrate piglets.
According to the original career promotion path, he had to rotate from the delivery house to the farrowing house. One of the jobs in the farrowing house was castration.
Boars will grow faster if they are castrated within 3 days of birth.
To castrate a pig, use a knife to make a cut, squeeze the testicles out of the incision, grab it with your hand and pull it out until it breaks.
Li Di felt terrified when he saw the instructional video.
"As a man, I feel so painful." Li Di said, "It's not the pain of pigs, but it's my own pain." He resolutely refused to go to the delivery room. Fortunately, at the time there was an information specialist recruitment at the headquarters. Few, but the professional counterpart, he immediately applied for a transfer.
Now he is in charge of the informatization construction of the pig farm in the office building. If it weren't for the “pigs” all the time when calling, he would be no different from an ordinary white-collar office worker.
After 203 days of work, Zhang Yao offered to leave.
Usually a person is in the pig house, facing the pig every day, and the time to talk to people is not more than 20 minutes.
When he came home from vacation at the end of March, he suddenly realized that he didn’t know how to deal with people anymore. When he saw his relatives, he said that he was conscientious, and his voice was as small as a mosquito. ?"
This incident directly prompted him to leave the position of reserve head of the field.
This subtle influence made him feel terrified, and he didn't know what it would look like after another six months.
Zhang Yao felt that he knew himself better after raising pigs for more than half a year.
"I have been to that place before I know what I want." Zhang Yao said. He used to think that he could find any industry to make some money, but now he feels that he still needs to find a job that he is more interested in. More energy, more attention.
He decided to return to his major and then work in the direction of food research and development.
Deng Yuheng still sticks to the pig farm.
He gets confused from time to time.
Thinking of classmates and friends working outside, and having barbecue and hot pot after get off work, he didn't know how long he should stay in the pig farm or what he should do in the future.
Some things are becoming clearer.
After entering the pig industry for more than half a year, he has learned a lot of knowledge and skills. He feels that he has changed from a "novice white man who doesn't know anything" to a "novice white man", "because the more he knows, the more he knows. I am ignorant."
In April of this year, he took a ten-day vacation, gathering with his college classmates, and telling them where he worked.
"There is nothing to be embarrassed about working honestly and working hard to make money."
Although he hasn't figured out where the future is yet, he knows what he wants to do now.
The most important task now is to stay in the pig farm and earn money. He has to feed himself first.
The four-year student loan for the university still has more than 30,000 yuan unpaid, and he has almost saved it now.
He lives in a quadruple dormitory and leads a group life similar to that of college.
He bought hair clippers online, his roommates cut hairs to each other, two colleagues became bald, and he left a small braid.
He also bought an electric piano for 2,880 yuan, and taught himself in the dormitory with a video website in his spare time.
Recently, Deng Yuheng was sent to the delivery room. There are more female colleagues there. He feels that "women and women are not tired to work together", which injects motivation into his work.
One morning, Deng Yuheng went to work in the pig house. He saw the sun coming out on the road and the sky was beautiful. It happened that there was a pool of water on the side of the road, so he took the reflection of the sun in the water.
After the filming, he discovered that it was the dung water overflowing from the dung tunnel.
(At the request of the interviewee, Li Di, Deng Yuheng, and Zhang Yao are pseudonyms in the article)
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Chen Yinan Source: China Youth Daily