Raising free-range chickens under the trees, Jiang Xingguo sings the song of prosperity
Fed on whole grains, eating insects and grass, plus a little Chinese herbal medicine added in - the Dingtao farmer Jiang Xingguo has come up with something new in chicken farming. His free-range ecological chickens sell for 30 yuan per jin, and eggs for 15 yuan per jin, making them the "fighter jets" of the chicken coop.
Walking into the Qiuzhuang Shawo Forest Farm in Chenji Town, Dingtao County, prefab chicken houses emerge one after another among the woods south of the road, with blue tiles and white walls arranged in neat disorder. More than ten thousand native chickens stroll leisurely in the forest, some pecking for food, some crowing loudly - this is the well-known Yishengyuan Chicken Farm. Farm manager Jiang Xingguo, over forty years old, has grown flowers and trees and traded eggs. More than ten years ago, he raised laying hens in Xinji, Mudan District, and accumulated some wealth. Later, a friend told him that the Shawo Forest Farm had a large stretch of idle woodland, and Jiang Xingguo got the idea of raising native chickens.
In 2008, Jiang Xingguo began renting woodland at the Shawo Forest Farm to raise chickens. The chicken farm is far from the village, with a large site, fresh air, and shady trees with insects and grass. The farm covers more than 70 mu. He carefully selected local "benchicken" and "native chicken" breeds to raise. From just a few simple sheds at first, it has grown to more than 10 high-standard chicken houses today. Commercial chickens have gone from one or two thousand at the start to forty or fifty thousand a year in four batches now. Besides local sales, the native chickens and eggs are partly shipped as far as Beijing and Dalian, with annual profits of several hundred thousand yuan. By this point, Jiang Xingguo had become a veritable "chicken-raising king" of Dingtao County.
During this period, Jiang Xingguo ran into avian influenza in his chicken farming. Like other farmers, because he did not pay attention to disease prevention at the time, he suffered a total wipeout. Learning from the painful experience, half a year later Jiang Xingguo rallied again, disinfected the chicken farm inside and out, brought in 5,000 new chicks, and stuck with it.
Jiang Xingguo raises chickens with ecology and health as his standards. He insists on targeted hatching of eggs, which first ensures the health of the chicks. To enhance the nutritional value of the native chickens, Jiang Xingguo also consulted several nutrition experts and veteran Chinese medicine doctors, mixing and grinding 11 Chinese herbs including danggui (Angelica sinensis), dangshen (Codonopsis pilosula), chaihu (Bupleurum chinense), gancao (licorice), and jinyinhua (honeysuckle) into powder, and adding it to the chicken feed at a ratio of 1.5%. This both prevents the native chickens from getting sick and improves the quality of the meat.
To increase profits, Jiang Xingguo cleared out the poplar trees that had poor returns and replaced them with catalpa trees that had better prospects. Besides moving the chickens to different spots on schedule, he also uses insect-attracting lamps in spring, summer, and autumn to lure insects, and often uses a rotary tiller to turn the soil so the chickens can eat underground insects and surface insects, achieving the goal of no insects and no weeds under the trees while chicken manure nourishes the trees.
"Laying hens have to be culled in their second year - they eat a lot and lay few eggs. But this kind of native chicken is especially popular when sold to Beijing, and at peak prices it sells for 30 yuan per jin." As soon as Jiang Xingguo starts talking about his chicken-raising know-how, his face lights up with excitement: "Our farm pays attention to site hygiene and regular disease prevention. The chicken meat is good quality and sells well. Orders are usually placed by phone, and a batch is ready every two or three months."
As the saying goes, "colleagues are rivals," but Jiang Xingguo does not see it that way. He believes that goods sell better when piled up like a mountain, and only by banding together to venture into the market can everyone achieve prosperity together. He widely shares his chicken-raising know-how and led the people to set up a chicken-raising professional cooperative, following the path of "breeding base + cooperative + farming households." He has helped 12 farming households get on the road to prosperity, with each household raising more than 3,000 chickens and increasing income by more than 60,000 yuan a year. At present, Jiang Xingguo has signed a long-term cooperation agreement with a large supermarket in Heze. The commercial chickens and eggs are purchased by the company at a protected price, greatly relieving the chicken farmers of their worries.