Borrowing a chicken to lay eggs: a new path out of poverty to higher income

Zhang Jianguo gazed blankly at the apricot blossoms blooming in the mountain gully in front of his door.

"If only I could raise chickens here, how wonderful that would be." He spoke to himself.

To Zhang Jianguo, the remote mountain gully was a perfect place to raise chickens - remote with few people and few disease outbreaks, ecologically friendly and pollution-free.

"Jianguo, we've transferred the money to your account, 150,000 yuan each, please check and confirm." Villagers Zhang Wanping and Mian Guozhu, somewhat impatient, sought out Zhang Jianguo to discuss investing in a chicken-raising partnership.

"Based on the current market, I estimate you two can each get a dividend of 20,000 yuan at the end of the year." Zhang Jianguo did the math and said.

"You've quit being a contractor and come back to raise chickens, we feel safe working with you." Mian Guozhu said.

In the villagers' eyes, Zhang Jianguo was a capable man, who had worked as a contractor away from home for years and was the first person in the township to become wealthy.

Who would have thought that the now-wealthy Zhang Jianguo would be so "restless" that 3 years ago he actually quit being a "contractor" and returned to Shangmawa Village, Xinji Township, Pengyang County, to raise chickens.

This left many people puzzled, "Not earning big money outside, coming back to raise chicks?"

"Once the chicken farm is established, it will be a prosperous industry." Zhang Jianguo wanted to build his own "chicken-raising kingdom."

In 2013, Zhang Jianguo bought 4,500 laying hens and built his first chicken coop.

He had thought raising chickens would be a simple matter, but unexpectedly some chickens fell ill one after another.

Zhang Jianguo hurriedly traveled far and near, seeking advice on chicken-raising skills everywhere. At a friend's chicken farm, he endured the stench and stayed in the chicken coop for most of a day.

Finally, he slowly "got the hang of it." Besides wholesale and retail, Zhang Jianguo's eggs were mainly supplied to schools in Xinji Township. In the first year, he earned 80,000 yuan.

The trial raising was a success, and over the following two years, he added 8,000 chickens each year, becoming a well-known large-scale chicken raiser in Pengyang County.

This year, Zhang Jianguo established a breeding professional cooperative, taking in impoverished households Zhang Wanxin and Zhang Peng as members, letting them learn chicken raising while serving as his assistants.

"I earn over 2,000 yuan a month, a stable income." Zhang Wanxin said. Zhang Jianguo planned to build a chicken coop at the farm to uniformly provide chicks, uniformly guide techniques, and uniformly handle sales for impoverished households in the village who wanted to raise chickens, and to implement a "shareholding system" in the cooperative, encouraging villagers to invest and receive dividends. "You put in money as shareholders, no need to worry, I run it, and at the end of the year you take your cut." This idea of his made some farming households with spare cash light up.

Zhang Wanping and Mian Guozhu were the first to respond, bringing their money early to invest, "Borrow your chickens to lay 'golden eggs' for us."

"This year, let's improve the chicken farm's environment, build another 'poverty-alleviation chicken coop,' and lead the poor families in the village to earn money together." Zhang Jianguo pointed at the mountain gully in front of the door, "The land here is remote with few people, the air is fresh, how about we contract it to develop under-forest breeding?"

"Good idea! Good environment and plenty of forage, ecological chickens, ecological eggs, they'll definitely sell well." The two "shareholders" agreed wholeheartedly.