Ecological chicken raising "pecking" opens the door to get rich - Chen Ming, a family farmer in Langtianwu, Jiangshan City

Along the rugged mountain road, walking into the Langtianwu Family Farm in Jiangshan City, located in Chencun Village, Shuangta Street, only to see a dense bamboo forest, silver-eared chickens, white-haired black-boned chickens or leisurely pacing, or foraging in the forest, chasing each other, running to the depths of the forest. Not far away, several chicken coops on the farm house laying hens, and a dozen pigeons on the roof "cooed" and barked.

Chen Ming, the owner of the farm at first sight, wears a pair of glasses, like a Confucian scholar, but his skin is obviously dark. Chen Ming, 37, found a white-collar job in Hangzhou after graduating from university in 2006 and had a good treatment. Perhaps not adapted to the fast-paced work of the metropolis, after working for more than a year, Chen Ming, who is more yearning for pastoral life in his heart, resolutely decided to resign and return to his hometown to start a business.

"I majored in petroleum in college, what can I do when I get home?" For a while when he had just returned home, Chen Ming was confused. After some investigation and analysis, he felt that his hometown Chencun Village was less than 10 kilometers away from the urban area, and although it was located on the outskirts of the city, it was also a mountainous area, and the mountain forest resources were abundant. He decided to develop the "pen + forest" ecological chicken breeding model, the pen breeds layer chickens, and the native chickens under the forest eat insects, grasses, branches and leaves between the mountains and forests, and the products are green and original.

Just do it. Chen Ming, who had no funds, heard that there was a support policy for college students to start a business in the city, so he obtained a discount loan of 50,000 yuan from the bank, and borrowed part of the funds from relatives and friends, invested 200,000 yuan, contracted more than 20 acres of mountain farms in the village, built 4 new chicken coops, and raised more than 1,000 chickens.

Without chicken breeding experience and technology, Chen Ming consulted books or learned breeding techniques on the Internet, while groping and breeding. He also experimented with new technologies, but often failed. The following year, he borrowed another 100,000 yuan to expand the scale of aquaculture. After several years of careful management, he raised more than 5,000 chickens, and the breeds expanded from a single broiler to a silver-eared chicken, black chicken, colorful pheasant and other varieties. Chen Ming registered and established lang tianwu family farm, and gradually embarked on the road of large-scale chicken raising.

Unexpectedly, in 2013, H7N9 avian influenza occurred in China, and broiler chickens and eggs were not sold. In order to reduce the loss, he pickled the eggs to make salted eggs, but still lost more than 500,000 yuan, and the money he had saved in previous years was lost. When he was at a loss to start a business, in 2014, Xu Jun, the head of the e-commerce company Jiangshan Hengwo Agricultural Products Company, found Chen Ming to discuss cooperation. The two sides hit it off, with Xu Jun helping him sell native chickens and eggs online. Chen Ming then raised nearly 100 pigeons and tried to breed some Boer goats and otter rabbits, but due to market conditions and lack of breeding experience, the latter ended in failure.

Lady Luck cares for those who are prepared. In 2016, a college classmate of Chen Ming inadvertently revealed to him that his classmates were responsible for purchasing ingredients for the "Xue long" Chinese Antarctic scientific expedition team and were purchasing pollution-free and nutritious native chickens. Chen Ming immediately contacted the person in charge. According to the requirements of the other party, he sent the native chicken to an authoritative institution for testing, and the results of the report showed that the indicators of the native chickens raised on the farm met the standards of ecological nutrition, which suddenly solved the sales channel of hundreds of chickens, and the farm began to have a little fame.

In recent years, the Chinese herbal medicine industry in Jiangshan City has developed vigorously, and the Municipal Association of Chinese Medicinal Materials has developed medicinal diets such as "Black Chicken Yellow Essence Pot". Looking at this outlet, in 2019, Chen Ming purchased 3,000 chicken seedlings from Jiangshan Lanfeng Breeding Poultry Co., Ltd. and began to turn to large-scale breeding of white-haired black-bone chickens. These white-haired black-bone chickens are mainly sold to the Hangzhou State Guesthouse and some star hotels in Jiangshan City. In recent years, the annual income of the farm from the sale of native chickens and eggs has stabilized at more than 600,000 yuan. In 2018, Chen Ming was named a beautiful new farmer in Quzhou City, and his farm has also been rated as a demonstration family farm in Jiangshan City and a demonstration family farm in Quzhou City.

Last year, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, broiler sales were again impacted. In this regard, Chen Ming appropriately reduced the scale of chicken raising, and then contracted 20 acres of Shantang Reservoir from the village, stocked more than 10,000 fish fry and turtles such as blue carp, grass carp, mandarin fish, etc., and began to breed clearwater fish. He also intends to build recreational facilities to attract fishing enthusiasts.

"More than ten years of chicken raising have experienced ups and downs, with losses and profits." Chen Ming said that he insisted on giving up and firmly believed that as long as he took the pulse of the quasi-market, there was always a return on his efforts, and he was striving to make strides towards a better life.