The first night at the new hotel in Xi'an went very well. We were
happy when we walked into breakfast and saw bacon and some other western
breakfast foods. We started out our day
by taking a bus ride to Shaanxi Kingbull Livestock Development Company. They breed, feed, and slaughter their beef
cattle; they slaughter 100,000 head a year.
They sell their beef to high-class restaurants and export to other
countries. The beef sells for 140
dollars a pound. They breed their local
breed called the Qingchaun with Angus cattle that are imported from
Australia. These crosses are then bred
to Wagu cattle to produce the Kingbull cattle breed. An interesting fact is that 20% of the
cattles liquid intake is beer because the managers believe it helps with fat
deposition.
On the way to the
next stop we had to drive through a market on the side of the road. They were selling everything from vegetables
to clothing. Then we arrived at the
Qingchaun Beef Cattle Breeding Center, which is the biggest owner of Qingchaun
cattle in China. All the cows are
dry-lotted in pens with brick floors. They have the biggest silage bunker in
the area. The diets consisted of silage,
soybean meal, and wheat byproducts. It was interesting to see the differences
in the body type of the local Chinese cattle as compared with those from
home.
We headed to our
next stop, which was a dairy breeding center nearby. They had 500 cattle on the place but only 200
were producing milk at the time. The pens
were very empty and they weren't close to their full capacity at all. The milking parlor wasn't a parlor at all and
was actually done by a portable milker that was hooked to vacuum lines that
took it to the milk tank. The cows
looked in good health but they were different than what we are used to seeing
when it came to conformation. Students and faculty with a plant-based interest
were also engaged with identifying crop and local plant varieties throughout
the farm.
Next we ate at the
Northwest Ag and Forestry campus cafe and the headed to Besun group base for
pig production and processing. Here they
finish and slaughter 4,500,000 pigs a year.
We got to see the processing plant but we weren't allowed to take
pictures, which shows their lack of transparency for production.
Our afternoon fun continued at the Xi'an city wall. Everyone decided to ride the tandem bikes
around the wall, which soon turned into a race between most of the boys. Stetson and Adam were the first ones to make
it around the 9-mile city wall. The
entire group enjoyed the cityscape during this much appreciated surprise
outdoor fun.
For supper we had
traditional dumpling dinner. We got to
try 18 different types of dumplings, which are a specialty in the Xi'an area,
dating back to an empress from Xi’an who had a keen liking for elaborate
dumplings designed to look like the food source they contained. The dinner was followed by a traditional
dance show that displayed historic dances from the different dynasties that
ruled the Xi'an area.
Until tomorrow!
Blog by Kyle, Justin and Kelsey S.
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