Every day, hundreds of field mice from Nghe An enter restaurants in Hanoi.

For nearly a month now, every day, Mr. Dao Van Vo in Quynh Lam commune (Quynh Luu) and his group of friends have been carrying their tools and traveling dozens of kilometers to all the fields inside and outside the district to hunt for rats. Today, Mr. Vo's group continued to stop at the field of hamlet 1, Quynh Ba commune to "capture" the field rats.

In the fall, when the rice fields have just been harvested, is the right time to hunt this rodent."Hunting" field miceIt is both a hobby and a source of income for many people.

People in Quynh Luu (Nghe An) in the season of hunting field mice. Photo: Viet Hung

The field was located next to the inter-commune road, with overgrown grass and trees lying around, so Vo's group guessed that there would be a lot of rats on the edge of the bank. Sure enough, each member of the group split up to find the rats' hiding holes and used hoes to dig out the soil. Hearing the noise, the rats ran out of the holes to escape but were caught by Vo's group.

There are a lot of rats in this field. We have been waiting here for a whole week but we still haven't caught all the rats. Not long ago, also on the edge of the road next to this field, within a radius of 20 square meters, we caught 200 rats alive, 3 rats/kg. That day we earned 3 million VND. In recent days, there have been days when we caught 70-80 kg of field rats. We sold them for money and divided them among ourselves, each person earning more than 1.5 million VND.

Mr. Dao Van Vo in Quynh Lam commune (Quynh Luu)

Field mice hide in bushes so hunters have to dig holes to find them. Photo: Viet Hung

Mr. Nguyen Van Trung, who hunts field mice, shares: “To catch a lot of mice with little effort, you have to find fields that people have just harvested, because the last rice fields always have a lot of mice gathering to destroy the rice. In addition, you need to find fields with many holes and holes, where mice live in groups. There is no need to dig a lot, the whole group just needs to dig a small hole and wait for the opportunity to catch a lot of mice, even a hundred kilograms. Although this is a side job, the income is quite high, if you diligently hunt for a whole month, some people can earn tens of millions of dong or more.”

Every day, the group of hunters can catch dozens of kilograms of field mice and then sell them to Hanoi. Photo: Viet Hung

On the hunter’s motorbike, hundreds of field mice crawl out of their nests and are trapped in cages. These mice will be weighed by locals and sent by car to Hanoi to be imported to restaurants at a price of 50,000 VND/kg live and 70,000 VND/kg cleaned.

In addition, some localities in Hung Yen province alsobuy and sell rat meatNghe An such as Nghia Tru (Van Giang), Hoang Hoa Tham (An Thi), Chinh Nghia (Kim Dong)...

Mice are put in iron cages. Every day, 2-3 groups of people in Quynh Lam commune (Quynh Luu) go hunting for field mice. Photo: Viet Hung

With this price, people who hunt rats can earn a decent amount of money after each hunting trip. Rat meat is always sold out during the day, and the supply is not enough to meet the demand, especially on weekends. The amount of rat meat sent to the markets is up to a ton of meat every day.

Nowadays, not only people in Quynh Lam commune, Quynh Luu district but also many groups of people in other districts hunt field mice. In addition to increasing income, hunting field mice also helps peopleplant protection, especially now in the winter crop production season.

Field mice are considered a delicacy.Country specialtiesfor many people. Depending on each person's preference, rat meat is processed into many different dishes such as: steamed rat sprinkled with lemon leaves, rat stir-fried with lemongrass and chili, rat cooked with fake dog meat, grilled rat...