Sichuan Meishan Silkie Chicken Meets Internet+ and Becomes a Golden Goose for Prosperity

At the beginning of this year, the semifinals of the first Meishan Youth E-commerce Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, themed "Youthful Meishan, Creating and Winning the Future" and hosted by the Communist Youth League Meishan Municipal Committee of Sichuan Province, came to a successful conclusion. The project "Let the Free-Range Chickens Fly" by Wu Yongzhi, a young Party member from Zhongyan Village, Ruifeng Town, Qingshen County, advanced to the top ten. Wu Yongzhi is a straightforward young man born in the 1980s whom everyone calls Xiao Wu. He has served in the military and worked as a chef. Time seems to flow as swiftly as a river, yet he always felt something was missing from his youth. Restless in his wandering life away from home, he always wanted to return to the mountains where he was born and raised to build something of his own. After much thought and many setbacks, he embarked on a difficult entrepreneurial journey, growing from just a few dozen chickens at the start to more than ten thousand now. Selling free-range chickens and free-range eggs through WeChat and Taobao, Meishan Xiao Wu Free-Range Chickens has become a shining calling card of Qingshen's e-commerce scene. Wu Yongzhi has thus become a well-known e-commerce expert in the county and has been honored as one of Qingshen County's first "Top Ten Entrepreneurial Stars" and as a Meishan "Good Rural Youth."

Raising Free-Range Chickens "Hatches" an Entrepreneurial Dream

While working away from home, he was determined to return and start a business. Torn inside, he asked himself: "What can I do back in the mountains?" After days and nights of thinking, he decided to just go home and start a business: raise chickens! Raising chickens was not a whim for him. While working as a chef in other places, he discovered that free-range chickens were hard to buy and in strong demand, making it a great business opportunity. Xiao Wu's hometown has pleasant scenery, sparse population, no pollution, and open land. Its unique natural environment is the best guarantee for raising chickens that consumers can trust. There is no place more suitable for ecological farm-style silkie chicken breeding than that mountain with clear waters and green hills. In 2012, after careful consideration, Wu Yongzhi bravely told his family his idea, but was immediately opposed by the whole family. His parents kept saying that the family's circumstances were already poor, and that once there were losses, it would be an irreversible and enormous loss for the whole family. Ignoring his family's opposition, he started from scratch with only 5,000 yuan and embarked on a difficult entrepreneurial path.

Everything is hard at the beginning. It is easy to talk about raising chickens, but hard to do. Right from the start, he worried about chicks. Purebred silkie chickens are very hard to find on the market, so he braved wind and rain and scorching sun, riding a worn-out motorcycle to farmers' homes in various places to look for suitable chickens. Free-range farmers raised only small numbers and were unwilling to sell, so he bought them at high prices. Working away from home had long tempered Xiao Wu's strong faith and perseverance. Day after day, he stepped unevenly along muddy roads, with mud on his shoes, pant legs, and even his clothes. Heaven rewards the diligent. By chance, Xiao Wu bought an incubator and hatched more than 1,000 free-range chicks, solving the problem of difficult-to-buy breeding stock.

The breeding stock was secured, but other problems came one after another. Due to lack of experience, in 2013 more than half of the chickens on the farm died, dealing Xiao Wu a heavy blow. Just then, Xiao Wu's father unfortunately fell from a tree and was seriously injured. His mother had been working in Chengdu and could not get away, and his younger brother was still in university, so his father could only be cared for by him. This made things even worse for Xiao Wu. With no way back from the situation before him, no difficulty was too great for Xiao Wu, who had served in the military. Xiao Wu was busy inside and out: by day he repaired the chicken coop at home, and by night he went to the city hospital to care for his father. Every day he was exhausted, able to fall asleep even while standing, but he still persisted and did not give up, facing things optimistically, and finally got through the most difficult period.

Sales Hit a Wall, WeChat "Pries Open" the Market

In May 2012, Xiao Wu's free-range chickens began laying eggs and entered the peak laying period. Every day he had to collect more than one hundred eggs. Looking at the top-quality free-range eggs, Xiao Wu felt both joy and anxiety. What pleased him was that free-range egg production had risen; what worried him was that the market had not yet opened up. Xiao Wu carried the eggs to major restaurants and hotels to sell them, but the results were still poor. Xiao Wu could not help but reflect: could it really be that genuine free-range eggs could not be sold? "Absolutely impossible," Xiao Wu silently cheered himself on. "I believe that as long as the quality is good, the market will open up."

Raising free-range chickens alone in the mountains, young Xiao Wu felt somewhat lonely. When he had nothing to do, he used his phone to take a few photos of feeding the free-range chickens and posted them online through Weibo. Through Weibo, Xiao Wu met many friends. Unexpectedly, this little hobby would actually help him open up the market.

In August 2012, a Ms. Yuan left Xiao Wu a message on Weibo, bringing him his first order. Through Ms. Yuan, Xiao Wu gained more than 20 stable customers on Weibo. Customers placed orders online, and then Wu Yongzhi delivered to them by logistics and express delivery.

"Internet+" Turns Silkie Chickens into "Golden Chickens"

Through online sales channels such as Taobao, WeChat, and QQ, Xiao Wu sold the free-range chickens raised in Zhongyan Village to Chengdu, Shanghai, and other places. The free-range chicken market was very tight, often with supply falling short of demand.

In 2015, the Qingshen County Party Committee and County Government encouraged rural areas to build specialized and large-scale farms, vigorously develop the breeding industry, and help farmers escape poverty and become prosperous through industrial assistance. Wu Yongzhi went door to door doing persuasion work and invested a large amount of his own funds. He kept more than 8,000 chickens on hand and led more than 200 impoverished households in 3 surrounding villages to raise chickens, with a total of more than 10,000. Wu Yongzhi strengthened standardized management of production links, focused on technical training for impoverished households and strict screening of products, actively explored and formed a product traceability mechanism, ensured product quality, safeguarded the brand image, and continuously improved operating efficiency.

Now, Wu Yongzhi is busy every day, busy inspecting and purchasing goods, busy guiding impoverished households on techniques, and busy contacting customers. He is tired but happy. Wu Yongzhi has exchanged his youth and passion for his entrepreneurial dream and has finally had the chance to lead the impoverished households in his hometown out of poverty toward prosperity.