Colorful pheasants fly onto ordinary people's dining tables
Golden-red feathers glisten in the sunlight, interwoven with black patterns, and two thick “necklaces” ring the neck, one white and one copper-green. Long tail feathers sway gracefully, and the red cheeks carry a stern dignity without anger. At first glance, one might think it is a small peacock. In fact, this is a “semi-free-range” colorful pheasant at the Jinfu Poultry Breeding Base in Zhouxiang Town, Cixi.
This breeding base, located at the intersection of Zhongheng Road and Lu'an Road, covers about 2 mu and raises more than 600 adult pheasants. Nets are draped on all sides, so the pheasants cannot fly out. But their growing environment is much like the wild: they eat natural feed such as corn and rice, as well as nutrient-rich ryegrass and all kinds of small insects in the grass. The reporter saw that the pheasants are very active and often “gang up and fight”; even when eating, they fly onto the tops of the grass sheds.
Mao Junbo and Zhang Lingxia, the couple in charge of the base, originally ran a clothing store and only decided in the second half of last year to “head up the mountain midway” to raise chickens. “The clothing market is more or less saturated, but green agricultural products are scarce everywhere!” Mao Junbo used a specially made net to catch a brightly colored male pheasant from a tall iron frame. Its shrill cries and violent struggling showed that semi-free-range pheasants are still wild and hard to tame. Two years ago, he and a friend happened to taste colorful pheasant in Fujian, and the delicious flavor stayed with him. Later, they jointly contracted a piece of mountain land at an altitude of nearly 1,000 m and began raising pheasants. After about 6 months of raising, the birds are transported to Cixi for sale.
Fujian is mountainous, while Cixi is coastal. Because residents in the two places have different dietary habits, although the colorful pheasant has high protein and low fat nutritional value, promotion did not go smoothly at first. Many people in Cixi are used to eating free-range chickens and old ducks and are not accustomed to treating such a beautiful bird as a meal.
The Mao Junbo couple treated rural cooks in the Yuci area as a “breakthrough point,” recommending novel and distinctive pheasant dishes to them for local people's weddings and funerals. A 1.25 kg pheasant retails for about 150 yuan, comparable to premium free-range chicken, but its weight is only half that of free-range chicken. Some consumers thought it was too expensive, so the couple launched dishes sold in half-bird portions. “Hens are suitable for stewing soup and are a very good tonic. Roosters are very active and have firm meat, suitable for braising.” Zhang Lingxia said they distribute bamboo tubes purchased from Anji County to the cooks. “After braising, the pheasant is then put into the bamboo tube and simmered, so the chicken absorbs the fresh fragrance of bamboo. Once you eat it, you'll be hooked.”
Through the couple's unremitting efforts, the base can now sell more than 200 pheasants on average each month and has won many repeat customers. Near the breeding base there are also a succulent garden, a barbecue area and a picking base. On holidays, many citizens come for leisure vacations and, by the way, buy pheasants and pheasant eggs here. Pheasant eggs at more than 60 yuan per kilogram sound a bit “luxurious” at first, but more and more people like them.
The Mao Junbo couple said, “We are also engaged in a ‘second venture,’ and we believe the road of going up the mountain to raise chickens will become wider and wider!”
(Xiang Yiqin)