The early bird acts first, opening a path to increased income

Entrepreneurship, as a spiritual state of striving upward, being proactive, pursuing progress, and building achievements, embodies the firm will to constantly strive for self-improvement. Every entrepreneur's story is not simple, and none goes smoothly. Wang Lianmei of Suibin Farm's entrepreneurial story is also full of twists and turns, and what moves me most is her indomitable spirit.

In recent years, the farm's brigade consolidation and district merging has been in full swing. The brigade houses are gone, and the "little free-range chickens" that every household used to raise have disappeared along with them. Most chickens sold on the market are broilers, whose taste and flavor cannot match "little free-range chickens." Wang Lianmei saw a business opportunity. Another reason was that she is a person who cannot stay idle. She plants 17 hectares of rice. Ordinary farming households here "work half the year and rest half the year," but she did not think that way. She is in good health, can endure hardship, and has experience. Labor creates value, and it was precisely this drive that started her chicken-raising entrepreneurial journey.

She had raised pigs before. The pigpen was surrounded by woods, and with slight modifications it could serve as an ideal chicken coop. There was a problem with funds, so Wang Lianmei borrowed 80,000 yuan from relatives and friends. Just like that, she had a site and she had funds, and she began busying herself, purchasing equipment, chicks, feed, vaccines and medicines, and so on. Everything went smoothly. She had experience raising little free-range chickens, but looking at the 5,000 chicks in the coop, she still felt anxious, always worrying that something might go wrong at some step. Chickens are very sensitive to temperature changes from 1 to 20 days of age and are prone to illness. She measured the temperature more than 20 times a day. For over half a month she could not get proper rest at night and lost more than 10 jin. Because of her hard work, only 94 chicks were lost during this period. As time passed, the chicks were already more than 2 months old, and the weather began to warm up. She released nearly 5,000 chickens into the woods. When she went to check the pen at night, she found more than 50 missing. Holding a flashlight, she carefully checked inside and outside the pen and found nothing unusual. When she counted again, she was still missing more than 50. This happened for 3 days. On the fourth day, she stayed up all night, keeping watch, and finally discovered the problem. It turned out that there were foxes and leopard cats around the woods, and eagles during the day. She thought of a solution: if only she could fence in part of the woods, but she had no extra money! She could only place dogs in the chicken coop and the woods. During the day she patrolled the edge of the woods circle after circle, protecting her chickens. By evening her feet and legs ached. Her older sister in Harbin learned about this and, feeling sorry for her, sent her money to buy an electric bicycle. In this way she reduced some losses. During this period she lost nearly 2,000 chickens. Later she said this: "You really can't guard against it."

In the blink of an eye it was autumn, but most of the chickens had grown relatively small and did not meet eating requirements. Many people suggested she feed more feed every day and fatten the chickens up. She did not do so. That way the chickens would have more meat, but the meat quality would not match the taste of "little free-range chickens." Local people all know that the reason "little free-range chickens" are delicious is that the chickens are free-range and have a high level of activity. In summer they are basically not fed much and mainly rely on eating insects. Only in this way are the chickens delicious, and they are called "little free-range chickens" or "strolling chickens." During the Mid-Autumn Festival, her chicken coop became lively. Relatives and friends all came to help, busy boiling water and plucking feathers. At 80 yuan each, she sold more than 900 chickens. She was also generous and stewed a big pot of chicken. Everyone said the chicken was really delicious! After this, many people knew that her family's chickens were delicious. Before the New Year, she sold 1,900 at 100 yuan each. She did the accounts: raising chickens had cost a total of 116,000 yuan, and by the end of the year it had become more than 260,000, for a net profit of more than 140,000. Now people on the farm all know that her family's chickens really are "little free-range chickens"! "For the best chicken on the farm, go to Huoli 24 and find Lianmei."

In 2015, she wants to expand on the existing foundation and scale up free-range chicken farming under the forest. Taking local chickens as the core and free-range raising in the woods as the highlight, she aims to increase the value of the eggs and achieve multiple benefits at once. In addition to her keen insight and unique market judgment, there is one more thing about Wang Lianmei that deserves recognition: she has not forgotten the fellow villagers who have no way to get rich. Her son graduated from university, served in the military, and was discharged at the end of last year. He gave up the opportunity to work away from home and, using technological means and his diligent hands, strongly supports his mother in raising chickens at home, with plans to sell the chickens to big cities such as Beijing. Next they will register a trademark and register a cooperative, and he will also take up the burden of the cooperative. For him, this is a great responsibility and a heavy load. From their ideas for future development, it can be seen that mother and son will firmly continue along this path of specialty farming. Wishing them a path to prosperity that grows broader and broader, and more and more people growing prosperous along with them.