The available fiberboard can be nailed with a 1.5 cm thick wooden board strip to form a wooden box, generally 50 cm wide, 100 cm long and 40 cm high. An iron or plastic mesh lid is configured on the box opening. The inside of the box is lined with a layer of food-grade plastic film to keep the inner wall smooth. A 5-15 cm thick layer of breeding soil is placed at the bottom of the box. Each wooden box is equipped with 20 tile pieces, 5 of which are stacked together inside the box. The tiles need to be washed and fully absorb water. A gap of about 2 cm is reserved in the middle for the centipedes to inhabit. The middle of the box does not contain tiles, which serves as both the centipede's dining hall and its night activity area. Such a wooden box can breed 200-300 medium-sized centipedes or 100-150 large centipedes per square meter. The surrounding fiberboard can also be replaced by ethylene woven netting to form a cage similar to a mosquito net. This kind of cage is relatively light and can be stacked into a three-dimensional cage to save space.
Generally, the base area is 50 cm x 40 cm, with a height of about 30-40 cm. Too small tanks cannot hold many centipedes, while too large tanks are not easy to move. A layer of crushed gravel is placed at the bottom of the tank, covered by a 5-15 cm thick layer of breeding soil. Tiles are stacked on the surface of the soil, and the height of the tiles should be 10-15 cm lower than the tank opening. An iron mesh cover is placed on the tank opening. When breeding in small quantities, tanks can be used, but the ventilation of the tank is poor, and water tends to accumulate at the bottom, making it easy for centipedes to get green stiff disease. Therefore, the breeding density should be controlled during breeding. In addition, the humidity of the breeding soil should be controlled, and dry breeding soil should be replaced when the humidity exceeds 20%.
The main methods of breeding centipedes at the Huimin Agricultural Science Breeding Base include box breeding, tank breeding, and pool breeding. Regardless of the method used, gaps and nests must be created for centipedes to rest and hide, and the size should be appropriate to ensure that centipedes have enough space to move around while also ensuring the convenience of management for breeding personnel.
The Hubei Centipede Breeding Comprehensive Processing and Promotion Center at the Huimin Agricultural Science Breeding Base uses glass tanks or earthenware tanks.
1. Location Selection
The location of the breeding pool should be selected on a sunny slope, avoiding water accumulation during the rainy season and preventing direct north winds in winter to ensure a relatively warm microclimate.
2. General Construction of the Breeding Pool
Common breeding pools are rectangular, and the size of the pool area can be determined according to specific conditions. The bottom is preferably constructed with bricks and sealed with cement and sand. Brick bottoms have strong seepage capabilities and are better than cement floors. After the walls of the pool are built with bricks, a layer of "virgin soil" is filled at the bottom of the pool inside the brick floor. On the surface of the soil layer, the inner wall of the enclosure is smoothed with cement and embedded with glass or pasted with plastic film. The purpose of adding smooth materials is to effectively prevent centipedes from climbing up the walls of the pool and escaping. Therefore, each seam where the glass or film is embedded must be carefully done; otherwise, centipedes may still escape even if they cannot climb up the smooth surface of the inner wall by holding onto the rough vertical seams with their rows of legs. The "virgin soil" in the breeding pool should be soil without a large amount of farmyard manure. This kind of soil is relatively pure, contains fewer pathogenic microorganisms, and is less likely to cause pollution inside the pool. Some people add cow dung and other fertilizers, along with chicken feathers and chicken bones, to the soil layer inside the pool to breed insects as food for centipedes. Actually, this is not a good method because these added substances are not essential nutrients for centipedes but instead create conditions for the proliferation of microorganisms (such as bacteria and mold), hindering the hygiene of the pool environment and easily causing pollution. The black mold disease of centipedes is related to environmental pollution. The height of the embedded glass inner wall needs to reach 30-40 cm. Currently, the height of the walls of the breeding pool (the height above the external ground level of the pool wall) is designed to be 40 cm for some designs and as high as 75-100 cm for others. The reason for doubling the height of the wall is to prevent rat invasion. Some breeding pools have a 15-20 cm wide feeding circle around the inner wall of the pool and a 12 cm wide, 1.5 cm deep shallow water ditch outside the feeding circle to provide centipedes with places to eat and drink water. At the same time, setting up a shallow water ditch can also prevent centipedes from escaping.
Hubei Centipede Breeding Comprehensive Processing Hubei Centipede Breeding Promotion Center Huimin Agricultural Science Breeding Base 3. Construction of Resting Beds
In the past, the method was just to pile up some soil blocks inside the wall, later changed to stacking broken bricks and tiles inside the pool as resting beds for centipedes. Recently, there has been an improvement in constructing more regular centipede nests (resting beds) using whole bricks. This is a significant improvement. Constructing vertical nests in a breeding pool can simultaneously adopt two construction forms: one is the full horizontal brick style, and the other is the horizontal-vertical brick style. However, according to experimental observations, there is always a noticeable difference in the number of centipedes leaving the nest at night between the two styles, i.e., significantly more come out from the full horizontal brick nest, while very few come out from the horizontal-vertical brick nest. It is speculated that this might be related to the different utilization areas of the two nest structures. Because the effective utilization area of the full horizontal brick nest is larger, and lying flat is energy-saving and safe, more centipedes reside there, whereas the effective utilization area of the horizontal-vertical brick nest is much smaller, and the longitudinal space is only for crawling, not suitable for residence, hence fewer residents. Therefore, when constructing vertical nests, it is advisable to adopt the full horizontal brick style. The cost of the old-style nest is relatively high, requiring some additional facilities for shading, rain protection, and rodent prevention. Therefore, a new-style nest with lower cost and no need for additional facilities has been designed. The cross-section of this new-style nest is shaped like a tower, using bricks and adobe as materials. In terms of structure, it adopts the horizontal brick style, as shown in Figure 4-1(C). The outer layer is made of bricks (24 cm x 12 cm x 5 cm), and the inner layer is made of equally sized adobes, which can construct nests of different sizes and multiple layers. The outer layer made of bricks is resistant to rain, with narrow gaps of about 1 cm for centipedes to enter and exit, while also preventing rodent invasion. The use of adobes in the inner layer not only reduces costs but also improves thermal insulation. During the cooling season, centipedes can move inward or downward, gathering at the bottom of the nest. When winter comes, rice straw or other insulating materials can be laid on top. During hibernation, insulating materials can be laid again on the outside. This tower-shaped nest can be large or small, and it is better to make it larger for outdoor mass breeding.
Supported by Huazhong Agricultural University: As a key university under the national "211 Project", Huazhong Agricultural University jointly researches with Wuhan Huimin Agroscience Bioengineering Co., Ltd., focusing on scientific farming and enriching farmers through centipede breeding technology: Huimin No. 2 Golden Headed Centipede.
Advanced Technology Advantage: Through years of breeding observation, many biological experts and professors of bioengineering from Wuhan Huimin Agroscience Bioengineering Co., Ltd., and Huazhong Agricultural University have cultivated a new generation of varieties - Huimin No. 2 Golden Headed Centipede - using genetic modification engineering after selecting and purifying techniques. After breeding observation, this variety is simple to breed, gentle in nature, strong in adaptability, fast-growing, highly reproductive, with better medicinal value and more significant economic value, making it an ideal investment breeding project for all friends in the breeding industry.
Complete breeding facilities: The company leverages agricultural science as its advantage, life sciences as its feature, relying on experts and scholars from the College of Animal Science and Technology, taking modern bioengineering, special animal breeding, and insect resource development as its core, integrating scientific research, breeding, teaching, promotion, technical services, production, sales, and import-export trade into a high-tech enterprise. It owns large-scale ecological breeding areas, solar house breeding areas, greenhouse breeding areas, etc., and has separate technical training centers, seedling breeding centers, germplasm rooms, incubation rooms, gene transformation rooms, etc., with excellent foundations and complete systems.
Wuhan Huimin Agroscience Bioengineering Co., Ltd.: Upholding the tradition of "diligent reading and hard work, self-improvement and helping others", our company takes "scientific farming" as its mission, promoting the industrial development of centipede resources with the business philosophy of "integrity, dedication, pragmatism, innovation, and win-win". We will strive to provide better quality, high-yield seedlings, advanced technologies, and comprehensive services for our fellow farmers, keeping pace with the times and jointly creating a brighter future.
Wuhan Huimin Agroscience Centipede Breeding Official Website: hm9188.com/index1.asp
Consultation: 027-87672386 or 87672385 Mr. Yu, QQ for detailed understanding: 1229441013
Mr. Guo: 1 5 5 2 7 8 2 6 1 5 8
Address of Hubei Huimin Agroscience Centipede Breeding Base: Room 318, Tianhui Building, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuchang District, Wuhan City