How a man who made money herding chickens found his way to wealth

Show highlights: He was once in debt for 10 years and seen by everyone as a failure. In 2014, he gave up everything and started over, raising a fierce animal. Could 10 years of failed experience let him strike it rich overnight and rewrite his life?

This is the Xilamuren grassland, 240 kilometers away from Baotou City, Inner Mongolia. Wang Deliang, 51, is staring intently into the distance. He rides back and forth on horseback, patrolling everywhere, all to protect the treasures that bring him millions in wealth. These treasures are an animal rarely seen locally, and the first thing people say about it is that it is fierce.

Employee: If you get scratched, it won't heal for three months.

Herder: It runs fast and can fly. Even a motorcycle can't catch up with it.

12 years ago, Wang Deliang was the first locally to start a tourism business, digging up the first pot of gold in his life: 300,000 yuan. But because of one wrong decision, he fell into 3 million yuan of debt and could not turn things around for ten years. Yet in 2015, Wang Deliang relied on a flock of treasures to make a complete comeback in just 3 months, and this year sales can reach 3 million yuan.

As it is about to get dark, Wang Deliang grows more and more nervous. For three months, almost every night he has spent in fear, because he knows that in the darkness not far away, a dangerous animal is slowly closing in on his money-making treasures. He must be highly vigilant and protect his wealth at all costs.

Wang Deliang: Get closer and you can see more clearly. There, there. Not just one, several.

It was almost another night without sleep, but at some point, several of the treasures were still killed, and some even had their heads bitten off.

The reporter asked to go see exactly what precious thing Wang Deliang was raising. Wang Deliang insisted that the reporter must be properly protected.

Wang Deliang: Necessary protection still has to be done well. Wear a hat, wear a head cover, gloves.

So what fierce animal did Wang Deliang raise on the prairie, and how did he rely on this thing to quickly rise again?

In 2003, after Wang Deliang and his wife were both laid off, they started a tourism business on the Xilamuren grassland in their hometown, and in the first year they earned more than 300,000 yuan. But right after that, Wang Deliang made a decision he would regret for the rest of his life.

Wang Deliang: My wife scolded me, and the people I owed money to were even worse.

In 2004, Wang Deliang borrowed more than 3 million yuan from friends, saying he wanted to expand the scale. When the civil engineering work was finished, everyone discovered that Wang Deliang had actually built this hotel covering 4,600 sq m on the grassland, and not a single person was willing to lend him money again.

Wang Deliang: Tourism is about the psychology of seeking novelty in a different place. People come to the grassland not to stay in a hotel, but to experience a yurt.

Because of one moment of blind impulse, Wang Deliang paid a price lasting ten years. In 2014, Wang Deliang was 50, and all he had was more than 3 million yuan in debt and more than sixty shabby yurts he had no money to renovate.

Wang Deliang: Ten years were not easy.

But in 2014, Wang Deliang happened to hear that raising a certain animal could let him start from nothing and quickly earn 500,000 in three months. There was such a good thing? Wang Deliang was immediately tempted. But this opportunity, which looked to him like pie falling from the sky, became a joke in other people's eyes.

Herder Baren: People thought it was too ridiculous. They had never even heard of it.

Herder Shan Dan'er: There was no information at all. If someone had raised them, we could see how they did it, but no one had. What exactly was Wang Deliang going to do? Only after asking around did people find out that what Wang Deliang was going to do was raise chickens! There are many people who raise chickens, so why did everyone react so strongly when they heard Wang Deliang was raising chickens? It turned out that Wang Deliang was not raising ordinary chickens.

Herder: Normally when you feed it grain, it won't eat.

Herder: It runs fast and can fly.

It does not eat grain and can fly? Exactly what kind of chickens was Wang Deliang raising? The reporter followed Wang Deliang to find out. Early in the morning, just after seven, Wang Deliang set out with the reporter. After racing across the endless grassland for more than an hour, they barely found traces of the chickens with binoculars.

Wang Deliang: Over there, there is a flock over there.

What the reporter did not expect was that Wang Deliang had actually put 50,000 chickens out to raise on 1.2 million mu of grassland. On average, only one chicken per 24 mu! That is, on average only one chicken per 16,000 sq m.

That is strange. Even for free-range raising, 50,000 chickens would not need to be released on such a large area of grassland. Why was that?

After nearly two hours of driving, the reporter finally saw these unusual chickens: guinea fowl.

Guinea fowl originated in Africa. Their wings are well developed and powerful, and they are very strong at flying and running. The whole body of the guinea fowl is gray with regular round white spots, shaped like pearls, and that is how it got its name.

Wang Deliang: This kind of chicken is very wild. You simply cannot catch it. You have to catch it in a fixed place.

Sure enough, because the grassland area is too large, as soon as you chase them, the guinea fowl scatter in all directions and simply cannot be caught. Since that was the case, our reporter thought of another method.

Reporter Qiu Yanni: We will surround it from three sides.

A master with rich experience in catching chickens told the reporter that to catch chickens on the grassland, there is a trick.

Worker: Don't scare it. You have to catch it quietly.

But this trick was not always successful either.

Reporter: You also have times when you cannot catch them?

Wang Deliang: You cannot catch them like this. You can only catch them where they live.

So exactly what kind of place do you need to catch the chickens? And what business opportunity lies within this flock of guinea fowl?

Xilamuren is located in the temperate zone and belongs to an arid desert steppe, with annual precipitation of less than 200 millimeters. The specific geographical conditions have become fertile ground for locusts. Xilamuren is a locust outbreak area listed by the Ministry of Agriculture. For many years, locust control had always relied on aircraft spraying pesticide. But this also had major drawbacks.

Deputy head of the grassland station of the Baotou Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau: Once aircraft locust control begins, animal husbandry on the grassland is affected. Another issue is pesticide residue.

Compared with aircraft locust control, another method of locust control completely solved this problem, and that was using chickens to eat locusts.

Deputy head of the grassland station of the Baotou Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau: Guinea fowl are a relatively ideal breed. Our local chickens get tired of it after a few days, but guinea fowl will keep eating as long as there are locusts.

Starting in 2011, the Baotou Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau had for 2 consecutive years given guinea fowl to herders for free, letting them raise chickens to control locusts, but the results all ended in failure.