Why did I ever think about raising turtles?
It started with a casual conversation. A classmate’s subordinate mentioned that her husband’s family raised turtles at home. They had used the proceeds from selling a batch to make the down payment on their wedding apartment. A yellow-throated pond turtle with a few years on it could bring in one or two thousand yuan at the time; now it is worth only two or three hundred. Curious, I went with my classmate to see the operation. In that village, people either kept turtles on their rooftops or ran small farms. It looked like work that did not demand much attention, so my classmate and I each bought 50 hatchlings at 120 yuan apiece, along with boxes and other supplies.
The first year we heated them through the winter. Five or six died. Then three more went from various illnesses, leaving me with fewer than 40. My classmate did worse; his survival rate was only 60 percent.
Four years have passed since those hatchlings went into the rooftop pond. I bought in when prices were at their peak that year. Now the market has collapsed to cabbage-level prices, and the feed and water bills from these years are simply sunk.
In the third year, we finally got eggs—not many, only about ten. People said fertility is low in the first laying year. I did not know much about it then, so I put every egg into the incubator and waited, expecting hatchlings after 50 or 60 days. In the end they all turned into fossils. When this year’s batch came out, I remembered to throw away last year’s stock. My classmate said we should have just boiled them for the children as a health tonic; what a waste.
Rare things are valuable. The first wave of turtle farmers did make money. There is no doubt that we were the ones left holding the bag. Once the stone-money turtle was hyped, more people entered the market. It quickly became saturated, and prices naturally came down.
Whatever the market does, I am already on board, so I will keep raising them. The hatchlings from each year’s eggs bring back some money, and over the long run there is still an annual return.
Last year my classmate saw my turtles laying eggs. His were kept in boxes with nowhere to lay. At the end of last year we talked it over and decided to move his turtles into my pond and raise them together.
Each number on an egg shows the date it was dug out. Most of this batch is still unfertilized. Of the four eggs in the picture, only one is fertilized—can you tell which one?