The market prospects for partridge farming look promising, with great development potential
The partridge is a rare game bird that combines meat, ornamental and medicinal uses in one, long known as a "mountain delicacy" and an economic animal of relatively high economic value. Partridge meat is thick, with fine bones, a unique flavor and rich nutrition. In folk tradition, the partridge is used as an effective remedy for strengthening the spleen and dispersing malnutrition in children, with notable results in treating anorexia, emaciation and poor development in children.
Partridge farming
According to market surveys by relevant personnel, in recent years partridge consumption has been extremely strong in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangxi and other provinces, with many restaurants seeking to buy at high prices, yet supply is mostly insufficient. The six provinces and one municipality of East China demand more than 30 million breeding birds annually, while actual production in the region is less than 16 million, a shortfall of nearly half. Therefore, the prospects for partridge farming look very promising. Some people worry that partridges are hard to raise, so the reporter specifically interviewed the partridge farm at Zhaobao Farm in Fujian. According to the unit's technical staff, raising partridges has 4 major advantages: 1. High nutrition The partridge contains a variety of amino acids needed by the human body. Its protein content is 30.1%, 10.6% higher than chicken; its fat content is 3.6%, 4.2% lower than chicken; 64% of its fatty acids are unsaturated fatty acids, and in particular it contains taurine, which is not found in the bodies of other birds. Taurine is the "brain gold" beneficial to children's intellectual development. In ancient Chinese medical classics such as the Tang Materia Medica, the Compendium of Materia Medica, the Yilin Summary and the Suixiju Dietetic Spectrum, it is stated that partridge meat has tonic and strengthening effects such as "benefiting the five viscera, opening the spleen and stomach, and nourishing the heart and mind." Partridge meat and its products are a representative of Chinese dietary culture in which people enjoy delicious food and experience "medicine and food sharing the same origin," and are also an excellent product for improving health. For infants, pregnant women and nursing mothers, eating it is of great benefit in promoting children's intellectual development and raising the health level of mother and child; for the frail and the elderly, eating it can have unexpected effects in speeding recovery and increasing resistance to disease. 2. Easy to raise, low cost The partridge is an omnivorous bird with strong disease resistance and is simple to raise. Its main foods are plant seeds, flowers, grasses, vegetables and roots; for large-scale farming, ordinary feed plus green grass and tree leaves can be used. Empty houses and warehouses in urban and rural areas are all good places for pen-raising partridges, at about 10 birds per square meter; if conditions are good and feeding techniques are up to standard, high-density multi-layer cage raising can also be used, with a 50 sq m room able to hold a thousand birds. At 80 days after hatching they reach 0.8-1.0 jin and can be marketed, consuming about 2 kg of feed, at a cost of 3.5 yuan. Through long-term exploration and practice, Zhaobao Farm has made a major breakthrough in feeding techniques: birds can begin laying at 180 days of feeding, each partridge lays 120 eggs per year, and the fertilization rate, hatching rate and brooding rate can reach 85-90%. 3. High returns Under good feeding and management conditions, one laborer can raise 1 group (each group 100 males and 300 females), producing about 10,000 marketable partridges per year, at 10-15 yuan each, with an annual output value of 100,000-150,000 yuan and profits reaching 60,000-110,000 yuan. Because partridges have strong disease resistance and low farming risk, their returns are 5-10 times those of traditional farming such as ordinary chickens, ducks, pigs and rabbits. 4. Large sales volume Partridge is incomparably delicious and also inexpensive, greatly welcomed by consumers at home and abroad, and has even been served as a fine dish to entertain foreign guests at the Great Hall of the People. According to surveys by relevant state departments, demand in Japan is extremely large, with a market price of 6000 yen per bird. Some manufacturers have already begun exporting to Southeast Asia and Japan, and the little partridge is entering the international market. The saying "one partridge is worth ten pigeons; with partridge, one does not eat pigeon" is very popular in Hong Kong, China, where 50 Hong Kong dollars per bird still cannot meet demand. It is predicted that in the future Hong Kong, China will buy up to 100 million partridges from the mainland each year. According to relevant data, annual demand nationwide is about 200 million birds, but current national output is only 50 million, just one quarter of market demand. Therefore, many rural areas in the south have set off a wave of partridge raising, and in some places a village has become a partridge-specialized village, with ordinary farming households earning annual incomes of more than 50,000 yuan.