Something good about leeches

CATCH some mother leeches and sell them to a new breeding farm looking to meet its full capacity. You can do that in Penang where farmers Muhamad Mohd Ali and Badrul Hisham Ramli have set up 50 breeding ponds.

Each leech can fetch you RM1 or more, de-pending on size.

Just dip your leg into a murky swamp and wait for the leeches to latch on, said one young man, who recently brought some samples to show Badrul.

The farm in Penaga, North Seberang Prai, breeds the big variety which the Malays called lintah, seven to 12cm long when fully mature and up to 30cm when they stretch.

Worldwide, there are 600 species of leeches and Malaysia has six species. The farm breeds mainly leeches with the green or brown belly, said Badrul.

Theirs currently is the biggest indoor leech farm in the state, using cement and poly tanks, versus the outdoor farm that uses ground ponds.

“We require 30,000 breeder leeches to breed at full capacity and now have some 16,000 of them. Each of the 50 ponds can eventually hold up to 30,000 leeches,” he added.

They feed on plankton growing in the ponds and suck on eel’s blood twice a week for additional protein.

“We put into the ponds powdered fertilizer that contains microbes to encourage plankton growth.

In demand: Badrul (left) and Muhamad inspecting some leeches at their farm.

“Twice a week, live eels are placed in the tanks for the leeches to feed on, two eels per tank,” Badrul said, adding that the dead eels are then made into eel oil.

Leeches live up to two years and lay eggs three to four times during their lifespan.

He added the farm obtains expert help from Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and information scoured from the Internet. It also has its own website at www.arowanavis.com.

The local and international demand for lee-ches is high, mainly for medical reasons and beauty care.

Currently, the farm is producing just for the local market, supplying breeder leeches to other start-out farms and making leech oil.

Wriggly creatures: Mature leeches ready for breeding.

Muhamad and Badrul also conduct leech farming courses for small groups, helping others keen to start similar businesses. After all, they got their start from attending a similar course advertised in the newspaper about a year ago.