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Born into a farming family, Nguyen Van Nhut Khanh (33 years old, in Cai Lay town, Tien Giang) was familiar with wild animals such as snakes, turtles, frogs, etc. from a young age. After finishing high school, Khanh joined the military and was discharged in 2011.
At this time, Khanh was given more than a dozen elephant snakes by his uncle to raise and they grew quickly and reproduced.
The young man from Tien Giang learned and realized that elephant and fish snakes are specialties, with high market prices while this reptile species does not exist much in the natural environment. From then on, he thought of building a cement tank and buying more breeds to raise.
“At that time, I spent 70 million VND to buy the breed and build a cement tank to raise the snakes. To date, I own more than 1,000 parent snakes, including more than 900 elephant snakes and 300 fish snakes,” Khanh said, adding that many female snakes weigh more than 5kg.
The elephant snake and the fish snake are similar in that they are non-venomous, easy to raise, grow quickly, have good meat quality, require little care, are resistant to disease, and have a high price, so many people raise them. However, the fish snake likes to eat scaly fish; the elephant snake only likes to eat catfish. In addition, the color of the elephant snake is more beautiful than the fish snake.
Currently, each year, Khanh's herd of elephant snakes produces about 4,000 baby snakes; and the fish snakes give birth to about 3,000 young. Khanh's snake farm currently has more than 20 tanks, inside which there are bamboo roots, nylon ropes, and plastic pipes for the snakes to hide in...
According to Mr. Khanh, elephant and fish snakes are easy to raise and require little care; you only need to feed the snakes once every 5-7 days. After feeding the snakes, change the water.
“When raising elephant and fish snakes, the most important thing to pay attention to is choosing good breeds with round bodies and beautiful, shiny skin. This species of snake is susceptible to skin fungus and intestinal diseases, so the water source must be carefully treated before being pumped into the breeding tank.
Snakes are raised for about 24 months, reaching a weight of about 1.5 kg and then start to reproduce, from 5-10 babies. In the following years, the snakes will give birth to more, each litter can give birth to 25-30 babies. The breeding season for the fish snake is from May to June and the elephant snake is from March to April of the lunar calendar," said Mr. Khanh.
He revealed that when raising baby elephant snakes, the tank should be about 5 inches high and 1-2 meters long; and when raising parent snakes, the tank should be about 2 meters wide and 1 meter high. The stocking density is about 50 snakes/m2.
Every year, Mr. Khanh sells about 7,000 baby snakes (elephant snakes and fish snakes) to the market at prices ranging from 800,000 to 1.2 million VND/kg.
Khanh only sells meat snakes after about 2 years, each weighing 1.5kg or more, priced at 550-750 thousand VND/kg for elephant snakes and 350-450 thousand VND/kg for fish snakes, depending on size.
“I only sell baby snakes to customers after they are over a month old and have been prevented from having intestinal diseases; then people who buy them will have less loss,” said Mr. Khanh.
Thanks to snake farming, Mr. Khanh earns nearly 500 million VND per year. Mr. Khanh's snake farming model has also attracted agricultural sectors from many places to visit, learn from experience and buy breeding animals.
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