In the morning, after leading a group of tourists from the provinces to visit and learn about raising palm civets at his several-hectare farm, Mr. Vu Huu Thao (born in 1991) in Bang Doan commune (Doan Hung, Phu Tho) shared that he started this business with 10 pairs of parent palm civets.

Twelve years ago, he was a food supplier for restaurants in Hanoi. Realizing that the restaurants he worked with had a huge demand for civets, he thought he could raise this specialty for sale.

Then, 9X Vu Huu Thao decided to return to his hometown Doan Hung to start a business. At that time, he spent 100 million VND to buy 10 pairs of parent palm civets to raise. He also started building a barn. Inside, the barn was divided into small compartments to make houses for the palm civets to live in.

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Anh Thao started raising civets with a capital of 100 million VND. Photo: Chau Giang

This animal is very voracious, grows fast and reproduces well. Accordingly, the civet breeds one main litter at the beginning of the year, and a secondary litter at the end of the year. Each litter has from 2-4 or more babies.

Just like that, after 12 years of raising and developing, Mr. Thao's palm civet herd has grown to 3,000. The farm area has also been expanded to 3 hectares.

With two solidly built cages of up to 10,000 square meters, Mr. Thao boasts that inside the cages are parent civets, newly separated civets, and commercial civets.

This farm is located quite far from residential areas, ensuring bio-safety farming factors, while also helping the palm civets grow and develop well.

He said that the main food of the palm civet is corn bran, but it must be clean. The cage must be cool and the temperature must be maintained below 35 degrees Celsius. Every week, he has someone spray disinfectant on the entire cage and clean it regularly to prevent the civets from getting skin diseases or pneumonia.

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The number of palm civets on Mr. Thao's farm has reached 3,000. Photo: Chau Giang

“At first, due to lack of experience, the palm civets had a low reproductive rate, got sick and died. At that time, I was both working and worried about losing all my capital,” he said.

However, he refused to give up. Every time he failed, Mr. Thao learned a lesson. He also bought books to read to better understand the living conditions, diseases and treatments that dogs often suffer from.

For example, if the pregnant mother civet is separated before the 5th lunar month, she can give birth to two litters a year; if separated after this time, she can only give birth to one litter a year. When the civets are newly born, absolutely do not approach to check on the civets, but wait until they open their eyes. Because if you check too early, the mother civet will bite the civets or carry them back and forth, leading to the death of the civets.

Newly born mother civets also need to supplement food in the morning, can be fed with duck eggs or boiled fish to increase protein. Thanks to that, the mother civet will have more milk for the civets.

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Thanks to selling breeding animals and commercial civets at high prices, Mr. Thao earns several billion VND each year. Photo: Chau Giang

Or, for the civet pups, feed them 2 meals a day to meet their nutritional needs, helping them develop well. As for the parent civets, when preparing to pair, feed them only 1 meal a day so they don't get fat, and when mating, the breeding rate will be high.

This process of raising and learning at the same time took Mr. Thao 2 years. In the third year, everything started to go smoothly. The civets also increased in number and grew well.

According to Mr. Thao, palm civets have high economic value. Currently, he sells civet breeds for nearly 20 million VND/pair, and commercial civet meat for about 2 million VND/kg.

The outstanding advantage of the palm civet is that its meat is delicious and low in fat, and is chosen by many diners and restaurants as a specialty dish. Therefore, the amount of civet sold is always in a state of supply not meeting demand.

Thanks to that, the 3,000-civet civet farm has brought Mr. Thao an income of up to 3 billion VND per year. After deducting expenses, he pocketed nearly 1 billion VND. In addition, he also created jobs for 8 regular local workers, with an average income of 7-8 million VND/month.

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