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.
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.)
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.
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.
