Eco-friendly Native Chickens Sold Online Open Up a New Path to Prosperity
Pingyang Village, Houchang Town, Ziyun Autonomous County is a Category-One poverty-stricken village, with many mountains, much land and a shortage of water. In the village lives a woman named Xu Min, who went from raising pigs at first to now raising eco-friendly native chickens, blazing a good path to prosperity through "internet plus eco-friendly native chickens."
On April 6, reporters took a car from the Houchang Town government along a winding mountain road toward Pingyang Village. The whole way was high mountains and dangerous roads. After the car reached a mountain pass at an elevation of more than 1,500 m, Pingyang Village appeared. Walking into Xu Min's family farm, we opened the door of a chicken coop, and eco-friendly native chickens clucked happily one after another. Two chicken coops leaned close to the residence, and the other two coops were set up on the roof of the residence. In the incubation room, chicks were being hatched.
"The chicken coops were originally built on a patch of mountain land in the village. A summer storm mixed with hail last year smashed the coops. After losing more than 2,000 chickens, I moved the coops onto the residence," Xu Min said. She had done small business before and had also gone out to work as a migrant worker. She only began developing the breeding business in the last 5 years.
Xu Min said that the first three years of developing the breeding business were spent raising pigs. Because raising pigs requires relatively good water resources, and Pingyang Village lacks water, if it does not rain for half a month, even drinking water for people is difficult, let alone large-scale pig farming. Compared with raising pigs, raising chickens requires less water, and through water storage tanks and so on, the supply could barely be maintained.
What Xu Min feeds are eco-friendly native chickens. The breed is the local native chicken. The feed for the chickens is corn and wild vegetables grown locally. These chickens grow more slowly than chickens fed industrial feed. Chickens fed industrial feed can be sent to market in 4 months, while chickens fed corn and wild vegetables need 8 months before they are ready for market.
"Whatever industry you are in, there is a process of exploration, and raising chickens is the same. Epidemic prevention is the key to success or failure," Xu Min said. She summed up experience while feeding them, usually bought some books related to chicken-raising and epidemic prevention knowledge to read, and gradually her feeding experience became richer and richer.
Xu Min believes that nowadays people have new demands in the pursuit of quality of life. For people living in the city, it is still somewhat difficult to buy native chickens fed purely on grain. On the other hand, because the area is in a remote mountainous region, buying industrial chicken feed is very inconvenient and the cost is relatively high. Buying local corn as feed to raise chickens, and then going up the mountain to pick some wild vegetables to feed the chickens, makes the chickens produced better in quality.
In Xu Min's chicken coops, reporters noticed that the eco-friendly native chickens she raises are on the small side. In a coop with more than a thousand mature chickens, not a single chicken weighing 4 to 5 jin could be found.
"Eco-friendly native chickens do not grow large, with an average weight between 3 jin and 3.5 jin," Xu Min said. Although the chickens she raises are small in body weight, their quality is good, and selling them is no worry. Last year, she sold more than 6,000 chickens in total. The wholesale price was 15 to 18 yuan per jin, and the retail price was 20 yuan per jin. After deducting costs, there was still profit to be made.
The chickens Xu Min raises are batch-bred. While one batch is sent to market, chicks are being hatched, keeping chickens available for sale every day. As a member of the "post-80s" generation, like others of her age, she loves hanging out on QQ, soaking in forums, scrolling Weibo and using WeChat. She has her own sales sections on Taobao and sales websites, and uses a mobile phone platform to sell eco-friendly native chickens online, building a path to prosperity through "internet plus eco-friendly native chickens."
As for the future, Xu Min plans to build a large eco-friendly native chicken farm in Niuchang Village, Sidaizhai Township nearby. At present, she is negotiating with villagers of Niuchang Village to transfer two small hilltops to build the chicken farm. At the same time, Xu Min also plans to distribute her chicks to poor villagers to raise, and after the chickens mature, buy them back uniformly for sale, thereby helping poor villagers shake off poverty and become prosperous.