Chen Weijen, the free-range chicken farmer who walked out of a cage

In his youth, Chen Weijen got into trouble, and one drunk-driving crash killed a person. He was imprisoned for eighteen years, living every day in a space of less than one ping. After his release, he decided to raise chickens, and to do it in a different way.

Three years ago, after being released on parole, Chen Weijen began raising nearly four thousand chickens in Gaoshu, Pingtung, including guinea fowl, black-feathered free-range chickens and Taiwan Livestock No. 13 free-range chickens. Every day these chickens run and jump around a 1.2-hectare pasture, eating fruit, okara, sweet potato leaves and distillers' grains, with no antibiotics or growth hormones.

If you want to raise chickens, you have to take the natural, toxin-free path

Chen Weijen, now fifty-five years old, says he grew up in the countryside, and quite a few relatives and neighbors raised chickens. Back then no antibiotics or growth hormones were used; the chickens were kept in pens beside people's homes, and on average they grew for one hundred forty to one hundred fifty days before laying eggs.

"I remember the chickens my grandmother raised when I was little. They were kept for at least half a year, and the meat had aroma. But three years ago, when I planned to raise chickens, I went to the market to buy chicken and found the smell was very strong. Then I visited other people's duck farms and saw not only intensive farming but also ducks raised in eutrophic green ponds." Chen Weijen therefore decided that since he was going to raise chickens, he would take the natural, toxin-free path.

In the 1.2-hectare pasture, the nearly four thousand chickens Chen Weijen raises seem to be doing drills every day. They run and jump, getting a lot of exercise, and they also have to endure wind, sun and rain. There is a ditch in the pasture, and now and then you can see flocks of chickens leaping to the other side.

As for their food, Chen Weijen prepares fruit, sweet potato peel, okara and distillers' grains for the chickens. The ingredients in commercial feed can supplement amino acids and make chickens' feathers beautiful, but the chickens Chen Weijen raises do not eat these growth feeds, so they look ugly on the outside. He laughs and says, "My chickens have no fat on them at all. They are all skinny, more like Daoist immortals."

(This article was funded by the Chien-Chen Environmental Education Foundation specifically for personnel expenses, but the foundation had absolutely no influence over news topics or interview writing, ensuring journalistic independence.)