Dong Hongtao of Zhengning County Opens the Door to Prosperity with Free-Range Native Chickens Under the Forest
"Over the past year, my farm earned a net income of 30,000 yuan from selling native chickens and native chicken eggs," Dong Hongtao, owner of the "Dagou Green Ecological Farm" in Zhengning County, happily told this writer on February 15.
Dong Hongtao, a villager from Group 8 of Fotang Village, Yongzheng Town, Zhengning County, used to work away from home all year round, but he could never save much money and could only scrape by. Faced with this situation, Dong Hongtao thought it over carefully and, after conducting market research on many occasions, set his sights on native chicken farming and decided to use the advantages of his family home to start a native chicken farm.
In March 2016, Dong Hongtao called on 4 people from the village to invest and established the "Dagou Green Ecological Farm". They bought more than 1,000 native chicks from other places and began raising native chickens free-range under the forest. Dong Hongtao's home sits halfway up a mountain, with large stretches of woodland in front of and behind the house and several abandoned cave dwellings nearby, which provided convenient conditions for free-range raising under the forest. After the farm was established, with his parents' help it gradually got on track. The corn used to feed the chickens was all grown in their own fields, which saved on costs.
At the end of the year, the farm's native chickens and eggs brought the family its first income from farming. Dong Hongtao busied himself advertising and selling online through platforms such as QQ, WeChat and Weibo. Through online promotion, Dong Hongtao's 600 native chickens and native chicken eggs were all sold without him even leaving home. His father Dong Weimin said, "The internet is really convenient these days. Customers all come to our door to buy, which really saves a lot of trouble!"
Speaking of his plans for this year, Dong Hongtao said, "If the market sells well this year and the native chickens and eggs can fetch a good price, I plan to further expand the scale of farming, adopt fully automated farming, and encourage the villagers to take part so that we can work hard together and prosper together on the road to a moderately prosperous life."