Learning
High School Students Benefit from Raising Rats For Local Consumption
Farmers, planning for their own farms, often seek rat breeders from the school. Mature rats raised by the students can be sold for meat at Bt120 per kilogram.
BANGKOK – Students in the northeast province of Surin are raising wild rats and selling them for consumption.
Thakong secondary school students are running a small farm in the school compound. Learning the skills in raising livestock, especially prairie voles or wild rats, for a living.
Students and their teachers have been making good returns selling the wild rats to a couple of rodent breeders.
Breeder rats can fetch up to Bt1,000 from local rat farmers, the Nation reports.
Farmers, planning for their own farms, often seek rat breeders from the school. Mature rats raised by the students can be sold for meat at Bt120 per kilogram.
People in rural areas of Thailand traditionally consume rodent meat.
Raising rats is relatively easier than other livestock, requiring only a small enclosure. Charuvith Charoensup, 12 grade, said the rodents feed on grass, rice grain, maize and other vegetable.
Surapong Rattanakot, principle at Thakongwithaya school in Thakong township in Sangkha district, who supervises the trial farming said the school also provides experiment course for students to raise cattle, goats and fish.
