Raising Chickens Opens the Door to Prosperity, Farmers Gain Income and Hope

Rao Bingzhu, a farmer from Liuleng Village, Dazhouzhou, Xingan County, Jiangxi Province, has embarked on the path of escaping poverty and achieving prosperity through scientific chicken farming. Since last year, he has raised more than 8,000 partridge chickens, with an average profit of 6 yuan per chicken, earning more than 48,000 yuan from chicken farming.Raising Geesemore than 3,000 geese, with a profit of 10 yuan per goose,Raising Geeseearning more than 30,000 yuan, and was elected by local people as the "Chicken Farming Champion."

In the past, Rao Bingzhu relied on traditional rice-growing methods, with two harvests a year of "wheat stubble rice and rice stubble wheat." He invested a lot and sweated a lot, but increased production without increasing income. His standard of living hovered around the subsistence line, and it was difficult for him to prosper. By chance, he saw a piece of prosperity information in the Henan Rural News: raising chickens in rice fields requires little investment, low cost, simple equipment, and low demands on chicken coops, and moreover the chickens grow fast, have a high egg-laying rate, show quick results, and bring large returns. So he raised funds from all around and bought more than 2,000 chicks, ready to go all out. However, due to a lack of scientific breeding techniques, a bout of chicken plague killed half of the chicks at once. Faced with this sudden blow, he quickly freed himself from the pain. Through calm reflection, he realized that the reason for his failure was that he had suffered from not understanding science and technology. From then on, Rao Bingzhu took the initiative to attend the cross-century young farmer science and technology training class held by the agricultural broadcasting school of the county agriculture bureau, and systematically studied and mastered practical techniques for raising chickens in rice fields. In 2011, he borrowed 80,000 yuan, bought back 7,000 high-quality partridge chickens, and used the 20 rice fields he had contracted as a breeding base, beginning his second sprint. Rao Bingzhu learned the lessons from his previous failures. He raised the chickens strictly according to the chicken-raising techniques he had learned and regularly carried out disease vaccination for the chicks. He also combined natural free-range raising with feed feeding, driving the flock into the rice fields to eat grass and aquatic larvae, which helped the chickens absorb trace elements from nature, accumulate nutrition, and promote early egg-laying by the hens. In this way, by raising chickens in rice fields, Rao Bingzhu could prevent public hazards caused by pesticide application, reduce rice production costs, and supplement chicken feed, while at the same time using the chickens for intertillage weeding, insect catching, and fertilizing, which was also beneficial to rice growth.

After the beginning of spring, while raising chickens, Rao Bingzhu also hatched more than 2,000 chicks, then bought another 6,000, reaching a scale of 8,000 chickens and initially building a small family chicken farm.