A deputy to the National Congress transforms into a chicken farmer, becoming a "Chicken Commander"
"Ou Jianchun, a delegate to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and captain of the tunneling team at Yumin Coal Mine in Hengyang, Hunan, has become a Chicken Commander." Upon hearing this news, I was very interested and decided to go and find out for myself.
Yumin Coal Mine is located in Yiyang Subdistrict, Changning. In the early morning of May 3, amid a fine drizzle, the air was especially fresh. Arriving at Shiqiao Village in the Yitan area of Yiyang Subdistrict, several enormous rectangular blue greenhouses stood out conspicuously among the green trees - those were the chicken farm that "National Congress delegate" Ou Jianchun had started after his career change.
Ou Jianchun had just come out of the greenhouse, his face covered in sweat, wearing a dark blue work coat. He was tall, with a crew cut, and spoke boldly and cheerfully. Although it was drizzling, his love of talking and laughing kept the raindrops from "gaining a foothold" on his thick eyebrows.
Ou Jianchun was recruited into the mine on New Year's Day 1988. After years of hard work, he became the enterprise's "Four Mosts employee": most attendance, most trips down the mine, longest hours working underground, and most admired by colleagues. He himself rose from a frontline worker to tunneling team captain, was later named a National Model Worker, and in 2012 was elected a delegate to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. In 2013, Yumin Coal Mine was finally shut down due to ever-increasing mining risks and costs. Helpless, Ou Jianchun and his fellow miners were laid off.
Facing this new challenge, should he use his "special status" to ask leaders for special treatment? Or should he rely on himself, seek his own livelihood, and take the path of transformation? Ou Jianchun chose the latter. He led more than 20 miner brothers to Yongzhou and other places to seek their own livelihoods, and many people found their "rice bowl" by following him.
To care for his ailing wife, in 2014 Ou Jianchun resolutely chose to return to his hometown to start a business: "If I can do it myself, I shouldn't trouble others, and I certainly shouldn't ask the government for a single cent." He wore his legs out walking and wore his mouth out talking, yet managed to borrow 110,000 yuan from relatives and friends and set up a chicken farm. Together with 6 shareholders, he established a cooperative. They first raised 12,000 chickens in Ping'an Village, Xiling Town, and everyone unanimously recommended him as the farm manager.
That year, Ou Jianchun had just turned 40, the most glorious age range of his life, yet everything started almost from scratch. He devoted himself to studying breeding techniques. To save costs, a man who had once carried rock drills doing "heavy rough work" learned to do "fine detailed work," mixing feed for chicks, giving injections, and administering vitamins, meticulous and striving for perfection. He said: "After the chicks grow up, they eat 200 grams of food every day. Fortunately, there's an automatic feeding machine to mix and dispense it, otherwise we really couldn't keep up."
"Raising chickens is a completely new profession for you. Facing such a big change, are there any difficulties?" someone asked him. "No difficulties at all!" Ou Jianchun answered with a smile. Chen Yuanjie, the cooperative's legal representative standing nearby, didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "When brave men meet on a narrow road, the brave win; there is always a way beneath a strong man's feet. Jianchun is exactly that kind of person. The village Party secretary asked him what difficulties he had, and he said none. The mayor asked him what difficulties he had, and he said none. The provincial leader asked him what difficulties he had, and he still said none. He's just too straightforward. I didn't even know before that he was a National Party Congress delegate."
"This isn't just being low-key, it's being tough and upright!" Villager Chen Yuanfeng gave him a thumbs-up.
Last year, the cooperative expanded its breeding scale and set up another new chicken farm in Shiqiao Village in the Yitan area of Yiyang Subdistrict, raising 14,000 chickens. These chickens ate an average of 2,500 kg of feed per day, and the egg production rate was above 90 percent. Ou Jianchun became even busier. Seasonal factors caused market fluctuations, and egg prices were not very stable. The first half of the year was basically a loss, and profits would only come in the second half. Ou Jianchun put his mind to work tapping potential and cutting costs: chicken manure was also a "treasure," which he transported to surrounding fruit orchards as farmyard manure; he and the shareholders contracted 100 mu of village land to plant the Chinese medicinal herb trifoliate orange, and secured "orders"; most villagers around the chicken farm had gone out to work, and many ponds and plots of land lay abandoned. He also planned to contract the surrounding ponds for fish farming and develop a circular economy, so that the "phoenixes" who had flown out of the village would return to their "nest" and rely on science and technology to escape poverty and become prosperous.
"How does Farm Manager Ou get along with the villagers?" Seeing that I asked so directly, Ou Jianchun quietly "hid" behind the house.
"Of course we get along harmoniously! We even have several villagers helping out at the chicken farm! Some villagers want to buy shares too," Liu Chengbing, Party secretary of Shiqiao Village, told me.
Before we knew it, we had chatted until 8 p.m. Ou Jianchun slowly walked into the chicken farm and gently turned off the lights. "Don't be fooled by how many chickens there are - they'll be asleep in 10 minutes, completely silent, much more obedient than little kids!" Ou Jianchun said humorously.
The next morning, at the faint light of dawn, Ou Jianchun walked toward the chicken farm, turned on the lights to observe the chickens' health, and the coop became noisy again, as if giving him a thumbs-up: "Brother, brother, brother, brother, awesome!"