Black-boned sheep farming gives Yunnan's rare breed a unique path to prosperity
In China, the black-boned chicken is already a common breed, but have you ever seen a sheep whose meat and bones are both black? Before 2009, some people believed black-boned sheep were mutated by poisoning, while others considered them unlucky; if a black-boned sheep was slaughtered, it would simply be thrown away. In 2009, after one farmer introduced black-boned sheep, people came to understand this special sheep anew.
Ordinary sheep have red meat and white bones. But in Lanping County, Yunnan Province, there is a kind of sheep whose meat and bones are both black. A man from Shandong named Zhang Fengwen introduced large numbers of these sheep and sold them for more than 300 yuan per jin. What is going on here?
Zhang Fengwen, a native of Zaozhuang, Shandong, is 55 years old this year. Since childhood he has been especially fond of specialty breeding, having raised animals such as black swans, rex rabbits and forest musk deer.
The reason black-boned sheep differ from ordinary sheep is that their bones and meat are dark in color; even their gums, eyelids and kidneys are different in color. Because of these characteristics, black-boned sheep were once regarded by local people as poisoned sheep that no one dared to eat. Later, a few bold locals risked their lives to eat black-boned sheep meat once, and only then discovered that their bodies showed no adverse reactions at all.
This situation drew the attention of some experts at Yunnan Agricultural University, who began researching black-boned sheep to determine whether they were toxic and why their bones and meat were black. Unexpectedly, this research revealed that black-boned sheep actually hold great secrets.
The research results from Yunnan Agricultural University cleared the name of the black-boned sheep; it is essentially the equivalent of the black-boned chicken among chickens. Therefore, in 2009, the black-boned sheep was included in the national list of livestock and poultry genetic resources, because it is the world's only and China's unique new genetic resource.
This research finding set Zhang Fengwen's blood boiling, and he sensed that black-boned sheep were a huge business opportunity. That same year, he staked his entire fortune and went to Lanping County, Yunnan, to buy large numbers of black-boned sheep breeding stock. From discovering black-boned sheep to bringing them back to Shandong, Zhang Fengwen spent only 14 days. He felt he had seized the early advantage in farming black-boned sheep.
For a full three years, Zhang Fengwen expanded the scale of his black-boned sheep population and did not sell a single sheep. By 2014, Zhang Fengwen's black-boned sheep inventory exceeded 1,000 head. At that time, in Yunnan, because black-boned sheep were few in number, one jin of black-boned sheep meat sold for more than 300 yuan. At that price, Zhang Fengwen thought he would certainly make a fortune. Unexpectedly, an outbreak of sheep plague spread through some areas. The sheep needed more than 1,000 yuan a day in feed costs; to keep raising black-boned sheep, in addition to his 3 million yuan in savings, he sold several of his houses and also borrowed money from others.
But that sheep plague lasted half a year without ending, and some creditors began pressing Zhang Fengwen for repayment. Zhang Fengwen could not hold on any longer; in a moment of despair, he drove his car to the edge of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, intending to drown himself. Before jumping, Zhang Fengwen shut himself in the car and thought for a long time. If he killed himself, he would be admitting defeat. He secretly resolved that he must persevere!
Before introducing black-boned sheep, Zhang Fengwen had already been raising dozens of pairs of black swans. Zhang Fengwen never dreamed that at the critical moment, what solved his urgent problem would turn out to be black swans. How did black swans solve Zhang Fengwen's funding problem?
Black swans are elegant in posture and carry an auspicious meaning, symbolizing faithful love. Many scenic areas were willing to buy Zhang Fengwen's black swans.
Zhang Fengwen sold more than 200 black swans at 3,000 yuan each, earning more than 700,000 yuan. The sheep plague lasted nearly a year, and during that most difficult time, Zhang Fengwen's black-boned sheep survived thanks to selling black swans.
In Yunnan, black-boned sheep meat was scarce and expensive, and only high-end hotels could accept it. At the end of 2014, Zhang Fengwen began selling black-boned sheep to some high-end hotels in the surrounding area. In just one year, Zhang Fengwen sold nearly 1,000 black-boned sheep, and together with the black swans, annual sales exceeded 5 million yuan!
After becoming involved with black-boned sheep, Zhang Fengwen often had to go to Yunnan, where he saw that some mountainous areas were still very poor, and some children did not even have shoes to wear in winter. This affected Zhang Fengwen deeply, and he conceived a new idea: to cooperate with local farmers in raising black-boned sheep. Through raising black-boned sheep, local farmers could also embark on the road to prosperity.
In 2016, Zhang Fengwen set up a farm in Lanping County to drive local farmers to raise black-boned sheep. Zhang Fengwen felt that the current price of more than 300 yuan per jin of mutton was too far out of reach for ordinary consumers and was also unfavorable to the development of black-boned sheep. His next goal is to increase the farming volume so that black-boned sheep can soon reach ordinary consumers' dining tables.