The formally trained chicken commander who raises chickens with pine needles and bamboo leaves

Wei Tingwang feeding the chickens

At around 6 a.m. on May 16, on a small hillside at Zhangjiazui (a local place name) in Changchong Village, Linshi Town, Fuling District, a thin, dark young man in a white coat was carrying two buckets of corn, preparing to feed the chickens. He is Wei Tingwang, who graduated from Southwest Forestry University last year, a young man born in the 1990s who is pursuing his dream by starting his own business.

Choosing an animal science major to realize his dream

Every day, Wei Tingwang rides his motorcycle along the mountain road to transport the free-range chickens and eggs from his own farm to the city to sell. Each round trip takes half a day. Going up and down the mountain through wind and rain has made him dark and thin. It is hard to imagine that last year he was a university student sitting in a classroom attending classes.

Speaking of starting a business, he said it was not a momentary impulse, but an idea he had since middle school. Once in middle school, when he wrote a weekly journal about his dream, he was curious about the mystery of chickens laying eggs and eggs hatching chickens, and decided that when he grew up he would open a farm and raise chickens.

When filling in his college application preferences for the gaokao, he chose two majors, animal science and chemical engineering, and was finally admitted to Southwest Forestry University's animal science major.

Trying to raise chickens during university

During the first three years of university, he studied hard and built a solid professional foundation. In his senior year, he decided to fix up the school's experimental base to raise free-range chickens.

"At that time, the living allowance my parents gave me was only 1,000 yuan. I took out half of the money to buy 400 chicks for a breeding experiment, and I controlled disease prevention and feeding myself." Talking about raising chickens for the first time, Wei Tingwang is still very excited.

At that time, besides attending classes every day, he went to the base to feed the chickens and observe the situation. He also cleared a small plot of land next to the experimental base to grow vegetables, saving living expenses to fund the breeding operation.

Half a year later, the chicks had grown up, and Wei Tingwang's breeding experiment had succeeded, which further strengthened his idea of returning to his hometown to start a business raising free-range chickens.

WeChat official account becomes a sales platform

Wei Tingwang's parents are both honest rural people, and they wholeheartedly hoped that their son could find a stable job in the city after graduating from university. In January last year, after Wei Tingwang told his parents that he wanted to return home to start a business raising free-range chickens, he met with firm opposition from them. His parents said that as long as he worked in the city, they were willing to take out all their savings to buy him an apartment in the city. Wei Tingwang did not say much, and just silently cleared the hillside opposite his home and put up a chicken coop. Unable to persuade him otherwise, his parents had no choice but to provide financial support for him to contract 40 mu of bamboo forest.

Wei Tingwang bought 4,000 chicks and began raising them. The town government applied for a micro-enterprise status for him to support local talent in starting businesses.

In order to open up sales channels, Wei Tingwang created a WeChat official account for selling free-range chickens, filled with promotional messages he carefully planned. After receiving orders, he would ride his motorcycle to deliver the goods.

Building a breeding experimental base

Wei Tingwang said that when he raised chickens at university, he fed them corn and pine needles, and that on the hillside in his hometown there is a bamboo forest and a pine forest. Compared with green grass, bamboo leaves contain not only fiber but also rich trace elements and minerals. Wei Tingwang told his university teachers about the idea of using bamboo leaves as feed, received their support, and made it a research project experiment. At the same time, Wei Tingwang uses his breeding base as a practice base for junior schoolmates, and this year university students will come to take part in social practice.

"Once the business is on the right track, I will consider developing an e-commerce platform to lead the villagers to get rich together, and then open a rural guesthouse so that city residents who come for leisure can experience the fun of collecting eggs in the mountain forest." Wei Tingwang said full of longing.