Taiwanese student makes $80,000 a year breeding cockroaches
It doesn't take long before the cockroaches Tong was breeding multiply at an alarming rate. Source: Shutterstock

COCKROACHES may be one of the most reviled pests to walk the planet but a Taiwanese university student has turned them into his pot of gold by raring and selling them by the thousands.

Owing to his knack for business and a high tolerance for the nasty insect, the 20-year-old student named Tong now makes some TWD200,000 (US$6,622) a month from his cockroach farm.

The amount the student makes in a month adds up to nearly US$80,000 a year, some US$5,000 more than the golden number of happiness cited by a Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School survey.

Citing a report in the China Press, The Sun quoted Tong as saying he began breeding the cockroaches in his apartment over a year ago after finding them difficult to source to feed his pet.

To address the shortage, Tong said he began to farm the cockroaches himself. Unsurprisingly, it did not take long before they began multiplying at an alarming rate.

According to World of Buzz, Tong said it was difficult at first to rare the bugs in such high numbers because he had a fear of cockroaches.

He said he also had to overcome nightmares about the creatures every night for over a month.

In half a year, Tong said got more than what he bargained for when he managed to breed between 30,000 and 40,000 cockroaches in his apartment.

Faced with the huge surplus in supplies of the insect, he later met a buyer by the name of Tse who made an offer to acquire all of the cockroaches.

After continuing to work together, Tse gradually became Tong’s retailer while Tong manages the farm.

Currently, the student has over 2.7 million cockroaches of different species in the farm which he sells wholesale to Tse.

**This article originally appeared on our sister site Asian Correspondent

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