Tag Archives: Zhang Hui Family

In China, Small Chickens Lead to a Big Transformation

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For farmers in Baishui Village, Kaili, Guizhou Province, September is a harvest season. Although the rice harvest is tiring, everyone felt delighted. Zhang Hui didn’t plant any rice, but his vegetable plantations gained a good harvest, and the 30,000 kilos of corn he harvested will provide sufficient feed for his poultry.

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Zhang Hui's wife prepares the corn feed.

Zhang Hui is gradually expanding his pheasant rearing operation to include chickens. By selling 400 natural breeding chickens and 50 pheasants from July to September, he earned 9,000 yuan (about US $1,400). Now he is still raising 2,500 pheasants and 200 natural breeding chickens. He and his wife told us, “After selling these chickens, we prepare to use the money to build coops. 20 coop shelves are planned to be built to raise roosters, as roosters raised in coops are better and can be sold for a greater profit. If this works, I am going to add 20 coop shelves next year.” (A coop shelf has three layers and every layer can be placed with 15 coops. Each coop can only be used to keep one rooster, as roosters will fight with each other if kept together. Fighting will cause the loss of feathers, affecting the sales of roosters. Moreover, it’s easy for them to be infected with bacteria.)

Zhang Hui and his family are raising natural breeding chickens alongside their pheasants.

Though busy, everyone in Zhang Hui’s family is beaming a warm smile. Zhang Hui is planning to learn to drive and buy a car, while his wife and children are preparing the materials used to build coop shelves and corn feed for the chickens. They also want to invite farmers in the village to teach them how to make leather shoes. By constructing an assembly line of leather shoes processing, they want everyone to make money together.

The newly-built hen house

When we were about to leave Zhang Hui’s house, he gladly said, “I have completed Passing on the Gift ahead of time. My daughter ranked first again in her class. I am very thankful for Heifer’s support. I will continue developing my chicken-rearing career and pass the chickens to more people.”

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Our colleagues in the field have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates. You can read past posts about Zhang Hui and his family here.

Through Heifer China, a Thriving Business for Zhang Hui

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The freezing rain in GuiZhou Province has lasted for a long time from the days before Lunar New Year. But the weather didn’t change Zhang Hui and his wife’s resolve to make a difference in their lives.

In the past three months, there have been a lot of changes for Zhang Hui and his family. The 500 pheasants he raised were sold out during the Spring Festival. Demand exceeds supply. Zhang Hui regretted not raising more to earn more money — each pheasant sold at a price of RMB 70 Yuan (about US $11), which brought Zhang an income of 31,500 Yuan (nearly $5,000). After factoring in the costs for feed, corn, disease prevention and chicks, Zhang earned $3,470 of net income.

In addition, the natural-fed chickens Zhang raised were also sold for a very good price. During the past three months, he has sold 726 natural-fed chickens at a price of about $12 each, which brought him a profit of $6,944. With this income, Zhang Hui bought 24 breeding hens and four breeding cocks. Zhang has accumulated about 600 hatching eggs up to this point, and he plans to raise all of the hatched chicks. Zhang also bought a hatching machine at a cost of about $500.

“With the help of the hatching machine, I can hatch more chicks to raise, which saved me a lot of expenditures on purchasing chicks,” Zhang says. “And I can also sell chicks; it’s a win-win.”

As his business expanded, Zhang also enlarged his chicken house. He used wood and iron sheeting to build two new poultry houses with a fence surrounding them. With a key function of raising pheasants, each house covers nearly 60 square meters and a nearly 600 square meter open area is fenced for raising chickens. The building materials of the two poultry houses cost 6,500 Yuan, or about $1,025.

New Chicken House
A new poultry house

Because his pheasant business is off to such a great start, Zhang went back to his profession, which is making leather shoes. Shortly after his return from Guangzhou, Zhang started a small shoe business. But at that time, he had little start-up money, he was not skilled at manufacturing shoes and the market was not good. Those factors led to him running his shoe business in a deficit. With the money they earned from their livestock rearing, the couple has re-started their shoe business. Zhang bought a machine at a cost of about $4,100. Their work is mainly to process semi-finished products into final products.

“The main business for us is still the poultry rearing. My wife and I just do the manufacturing work for two hours at noon, and another two hours at night,” Zhang says. “When it rains, we also do the shoe processing. My wife is still a new-comer for this; she is very slow at this, but I will teach her. When we are old, we can use this craft to make a living. This doesn’t cost too much, we can pass this craft to our children if they are not good at study.”

Zhang and his wife have made 200 pairs of shoes together since January, with a profit of about $4.70 per pair. At this time, the predictable income is about $950. One of Zhang Hui’s older brothers runs a shoe store in Kaitang Township, and Zhang can have his shoes sold there. “Making shoes is a tough job, but every time when I look at the future of my family, I can hold it even if I feel alone,” Zhang says. “I want to drink wine every day, play Mahjong, watch the battle between the oxen, singing and dancing, just like everybody else did. But I take time to make shoes, if I can enlarge my business in the future, I will make leather bags. I can also use the leftover materials to make kids shoes, which can bring me about $3 each.”

Shoe making machine
Shoe making machine

Since Zhang’s income has increased, he purchased a stereo. When he stays at home, he can listen to some music to make his life happier.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Our team in China has chosen one family in each region where we work and is sharing quarterly updates as these families work to better their lives with Heifer’s help. You can read their earlier posts about Zhang Hui and his family here.

Pheasants Mean Business is Good for Zhang Hui

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Guizhou Province endured a long stretch of heavy rain, creating problems for many travelers. But for Zhang Hui’s family and for all of Baishui Village this was a joyful occurance: last year’s severe drought was fresh in everyone’s minds, leaving a lingering fear for the year ahead. But with this bountiful amount of rainwater the villagers were assured of a good harvest.

This inundation left everyone very busy, especially considering the season, and Zhang Hui was no exception. Although during this period he had only sold 78 pheasants (for a total of RMB6240 or US $981, and a profit of RMB3100 or US $487), Zhang Hui’s main concern at the moment was the successful incubation, hatching, and nurturing of his chicks.

“Don’t think that because these chicks are small they won’t be able to fetch a good price. My incubator can hold more than 600 eggs at a time with a successful hatching rate of over 80%. So I’ll sell this batch of 1,120 birds for a profit of RMB11,800 (US $1854),” Zhang says. “Then I’ll buy more chicks from elsewhere at RMB 3.5 (US $0.55) each and incubate them for 20 days before selling them off again at a price of RMB 15 (US $2.36) each, making a profit of over RMB 10 on each bird.”

Zhang Hui managing the incubator

Zhang Hui managing the incubator

Zhang Hui plans to sell all his pheasants at the Lunar New Year, so at present he still has all his current chicks. This year Zhang Hui has decided to raise 4,000 chickens before the Lunar New Year, so that by Lunar New Year next year he will have made a small fortune. Going along with this scale of expansion, this year Zhang also planted 20 mu of corn. He said, “This year the corn I plant will have 2 days of after-manuring, when I’ll ask friends to come help out. Everything else can be done by the children and their mother, so I won’t need to do anything at all.”

Studying Mom's technique for making leather shoes

Studying Mom's technique for making leather shoes

Zhang Hui feels very satisfied because not only are his two daughters both obedient, they are also talented: the elder daughter is top in her class, and the younger daughter is a talented painter, getting second prize in a contest held on Children’s Day (June 1st).

“Usually I have so many things to do, making my time at home limited. It’s difficult to help look after the children,” Zhang said. “So I bought and brought home an electric rice cooker and a microwave to give them, to make it easier for them to cook for themselves.”

 

The younger daughter cleaning the pen

Zhang Hui’s family is getting on better and better. Recently Zhang applied for building an operational base to better raise his pheasants, and has already heard that his application has been approved. Zhang’s wife is a skilled artisan in every aspect of making leather shoes, and is happy to help shoulder responsibility for her family. The children, too, are growing up peacefully and happily. All in all, we can see a family that has a bright future ahead of them!

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Our team in China has chosen one family in each region where we work and is sharing quarterly updates as these families work to better their lives with Heifer’s help. You can read our first post about Zhang Hui and his family here.

Zhang Hui’s Hope for His Family

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Zhang Hui's two daughters

by Heifer China

Zhang Hui, his wife, and three children are living in a remote, mountainous village named Baishui in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province. The local economy is limited by a shortage of farmland, water resources and poor transportation. The whole family has only two adults who can work. What’s worse, Zhang Hui’s right leg was injured when he was a migrant worker, which prevented him doing some heavy work. Besides, they have three children who are all at primary school, a 6-year old son named Zhang Zijie and two older daughters named Zhang Ming and Zhang Yan. The low production and larger expenditures lead the family to poverty.

Before the project implementation, Zhang Hui only raised 23 natural-fed chickens and 2 pigs. After the Heifer project was implemented on April 16, 2011, he bought 314 chicks with the gift money and started his pheasant breeding industry. Then he joined the self-help group and became a leader. He accepted trainings of 12 Cornerstones and animal husbandry, and acquired skills in corn and rye planting and pheasant breeding. Moreover, the Kaili Science and Technology Bureau provided him 30,000 Yuan to purchase corn seeds as well as have an additional allowance.

“I had acquired some basic knowledge of pheasants breeding when I was in an eco-rearing base in Kaili. At that time I knew it would make money, but I was too poor then. However, Heifer China came; I have the initial capital to do this,” Zhang Hui said. “I wanted something different, so I choose pheasants instead of pigs, and I want to be professional.” With his hard work, plus the material and technical support from the local government and Heifer China, Zhang Hui had a harvest of both crops and pheasant rearing. By selling pheasants, he had an income of 20,150 Yuan.

In the past 3 months, the family has received electricity, built a bio-gas unit, and bought a refrigerator and an egg incubator. Meanwhile, they have upgraded their house into two floors, which provides another 50 square meters of space. While planning the future, Zhang Hui mentioned at present he would enlarge the chicken-rearing scale to gain more income to support his children’s schooling. The eldest daughter dreamed to be a running athlete. She has kept jogging 4 km per day from home to school for nearly one year. 3 children are top students at school. If they want to go to university, Zhang Hui stated he would definitely afford their tuition no matter how hard he and his wife should work.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Initially, this series will focus on our programs in Asia/South Pacific, where our colleagues have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates.

The new second floor addition to Zhang Hui's house

Pheasants on Zhang Hui's family farm