“Raising any child is not as good as a lesser whistling duck. This child only eats grass, rice, sleeps on the shore, but rarely gets sick. Thanks to lesser whistling duck, I have a good income”, Mr. Sa Le said.

Talking about the first successful lesser whistling duck farming model in the West, many people immediately mention Mr. Sa Le – Cham ethnic group, belonging to Vinh Hanh commune, Chau Thanh district, An Giang province.

From the day he started breeding in the fields, Mr. Sa Le has had nearly 10 years of working with this wild animal that many people love. Currently, he owns 700 adult lemurs, about 2 months from now, they will start laying eggs.

Mr. Le said that, in the past 10 years, he has implemented many models, such as raising goats, raising chickens, etc. But each model loses from several tens of millions to several hundred million dong. Only one child, helping his family’s economy stabilize over the years.

According to Mr. Sa Le, lesser whistling duck is a wild animal, they like to live in the sea or in desolate fields, with few people. Because of its wild characteristics, lesser whistling duck itself has very high resistance, almost no disease.

When I was a child, I ate industrial bran, grew up eating rice, grass, and water hyacinth. lesser whistling duck is raised for an average of 6-7 months and can be sold, then, each one can reach 400-500g in weight. Because the supply is not much, the selling price is quite high from 300,000 – 500,000 VND(20$)/leaf of meat. (1$=25,000VND)

Currently, Mr. Sale has just raised meat and sold seed. When the leprechauns reach adulthood, the harriers pair up, he begins to separate the herd so that they mate, the female lays eggs. Each year, a femalesser whistling duck prechaun lays 3-5 times, each time from 5-8 eggs.

In recent years, Mr. Sa Le has used an incubator to create hatchlings and sell them to people for between 100,000 and 300,000 VND/head. Particularly for parents, each child costs from 400,000 – 500,000 / child.

Mr. Le said: “About 2-3 years ago, when I didn’t know the incubator, I raised 60 hens to incubate the eggs. This job is more difficult than now, because I have to take care of the hens and I have to watch when the eggs are hatched and then put another egg in. Also because the hens are forced to incubate the eggs continuously, many chickens lose weight and become exhausted. Now with a stronger incubator, the hatching rate is almost 100. %”.

The Cham man revealed that with the sale of meat and breeding animals, minus all expenses, he still has a few hundred million dong a year.

Mr. Duong Thanh Don – Chairman of Vinh Hanh Commune Farmers’ Association, said: “In the past few years, Mr. Sa Le’s lesser whistling duck farming model has brought high economic efficiency. However, this model is difficult to replicate because it requires a lot of money. requires a large initial investment capital, farmers must work hard, especially when lesser whistling duck is small.

The technique of making a barn is simple, but this is a stage that people need to pay attention to and learn from long-time farmers like Mr. Sa Le to do it right,” suggested Mr. Don.