Chongqing Fuling: A professionally trained "Chicken Commander" 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 lab coat was carrying two buckets of corn, preparing to go 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 take the free-range chickens and eggs from his own farm into the city to sell. A single round trip takes half a day, going up and down the mountain through wind and rain, which 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 as early as junior high school. In junior high school, he once wrote a weekly journal about his dream. Because he was curious about the mystery of chickens laying eggs and eggs hatching chickens, he decided that when he grew up he would open a farm and raise chickens.

When filling out his college application, he chose two majors, animal science and chemical engineering, and was eventually admitted to Southwest Forestry University to study animal science.

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 tidy up the school's experimental base and use it to raise free-range chickens.

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

At that time, apart from attending classes every day, he would go to the base to feed the chickens and observe the situation. He also cleared a small plot of land beside 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 succeeded. This further strengthened his determination to return 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 had their hearts set on their son finding 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 their firm opposition. 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. He just silently cleared the hillside opposite his home and put up a chicken coop. His parents could not persuade him otherwise, so they 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 carefully planned promotional messages. 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 not only contain fiber but are also rich in trace elements and minerals. Wei Tingwang told his university teachers about the idea of using bamboo leaves as feed, received their support, and turned it into a research topic experiment. At the same time, Wei Tingwang uses his own 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 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 joy of collecting eggs in the mountain forest." Wei Tingwang said full of longing.