The farming story of specialty livestock and poultry farmer Liu Xiulan

Walking into Shencui Farm, located at Fozu Gao, Pankeng, Sanjiao Town, Meijiang District, one sees black-feathered silkie chickens running all over the hills, and what is even more surprising is that the eggs laid by these silkie chickens all have green shells. Seeing the puzzled looks on the reporters' faces, farm owner Liu Xiulan explained the reason: these black-feathered black-skinned black-boned mountain chickens are a specialty livestock and poultry breed she specially introduced from elsewhere, raised specifically to produce these highly nutritious green-shelled eggs, which are currently in short supply in the Meizhou market. 
　　 

Black-feathered black-skinned black-boned mountain chickens are highly wild by nature and like to lay eggs in the open, so people must go around collecting the eggs.

Liu Xiulan was originally a worker at the Meixian Leather Factory. In 1993, in middle age, she was laid off. To make a living, she decided to take up farming and breeding. With 50,000 yuan borrowed from relatives, scraping together what she could, she contracted more than 100 mu of mountain land at Fozu Gao, Pankeng, Sanjiao Town, and began planting trees and raising chickens. But because she lacked farming and breeding experience and technical know-how, Liu Xiulan's farm lost money year after year. In particular, the sudden outbreak of avian influenza in 2004 made things even worse for her farm, with losses that year reaching more than 100,000 yuan. After working so hard to develop farming and breeding only to lose so much money, Liu Xiulan once felt very uncertain about the farm's future. 
　　 
In the winter of 2006, a relative of Liu Xiulan who worked at the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences learned of her situation and pointed out bluntly that the farm's failure lay in raising only "run-of-the-mill goods," which had poor market prospects and weak economic returns; only by developing specialty livestock and poultry farming could there be a way out. Under this relative's guidance, Liu Xiulan introduced black-feathered black-skinned black-boned mountain chickens. These mountain chickens are characterized by black feathers, black skin, black meat, black bones, black internal organs, and even black blood. They are a rare and precious chicken breed in the world and have been included by the Ministry of Agriculture of China in the "National Key Resource Protection Project." Raising black-feathered black-skinned black-boned mountain chickens was not smooth sailing either. Because of insufficient experience, of the first batch of more than 1,200 eggs Liu Xiulan introduced, only more than 300 chicks hatched successfully. Fortunately, black-feathered black-skinned black-boned mountain chickens have strong disease resistance, and the vast majority survived successfully. To increase the hatch rate, Liu Xiulan looked everywhere for information and visited experts, gradually raising the hatch rate to more than 90 percent. At present, Liu Xiulan's farm has more than 7,000 black-feathered black-skinned black-boned mountain chickens on hand, producing more than 200,000 green-shelled eggs a year. Each green-shelled egg sells for about 1.5 yuan on the market, and market response is good, with sales exceeding supply. 

"Specialty livestock and poultry farming not only got me out of the predicament of always losing money in farming and breeding, but also brought good economic returns! I am even more confident about developing production in the future." Looking back on her entrepreneurial journey, Liu Xiulan said with emotion. Now, under the guidance of the animal husbandry and veterinary department of Meijiang District, Liu Xiulan has obtained a livestock and poultry production and operation license and registered the "Shencui" trademark. In the future, she will work hard on breeding and seedling selection, farming practices, and brand building, striving to raise specialty livestock and poultry farming to a higher level.