Hundreds of households get rich by raising egg-laying chickens

Billionaires in Thanh Van - the land of chicken egg farming

Chicken egg farming has been a popular profession in Thanh Van since the 2000s, gradually turning this commune into a place well-known for its supply of chicken eggs to Vinh Phuc and many other provinces in the Northern region such as Bac Giang, Bac Ninh, Hanoi, and Hai Phong.

It is a path full of ups and downs. At one time, Thanh Van was one of the communes with the most billionaires, luxury houses, and cars in Vinh Phuc, but there was also a time when the whole village went into debt because of the epidemic, and the price of chicken eggs dropped to VND 1,000/egg.

Statistics show that the district's total flock is currently over 1.5 million chickens, and Thanh Van commune alone regularly accounts for nearly half of the flock. In recent years, thanks to shifting towards building a production link chain and applying biosafety farming processes, chicken egg farming in Thanh Van has become more sustainable, highly economical and disease-free.

Nguyen Van Thieu's family in Vien Du Hoa village is one of the largest fayoumi (Egytian chicken) raising households. Including layers and pullets, Thanh Van commune's entire herd is approximately 650,000 chickens at present, and Thieu's household alone has 100,000 chickens.

On average, this flock of chickens lays 80,000 to 85,000 eggs per day. The market price fluctuates from VND 2,1000 to 2,300/egg. On a rough calculation, each day the farm owner and his wife earn VND 160 to 180 million. After deducting costs such as input and labor, the family’s net profit is VND 40 - 50 million. To get where they are now, the couple's secret lies in their perseverance in the business and diligence in updating their knowledge about scientific animal husbandry.

“The livestock environment is increasingly polluted and matters concerning diseases become more complicated. Without change, we won't be able to survive. Not only invest in barn systems, we also apply biosafety farming measures thoroughly. Chickens from 1 day old to 18 weeks must be vaccinated and given 12-13 types of disease prevention vaccines. When reaching egg-laying age, the disease prevention process continues to repeat every 4 weeks. In general, if you want to raise chickens sustainably, you must first choose safe breeds, use vaccines appropriately, and think about productivity and market later," said Thieu.

The farm is now 2 ha wide and the family will continue to expand the farming scale, expected to increase by 30,000 chickens by April next year. Having a large scale plus modern and safe farming procedure, although the first 5 months of the year Thieu continuously suffered losses because of high food prices and low egg prices, it only took 1-2 months for Thieu’s farm to recover and made a big profit as egg prices increase.

Thanh Van commune has approximately 2,000 households, of which the number of households raising hens on a large scale is roughly 300. Thanh Van is a purely agricultural commune, and although it is not very favorable in terms of land for farming, thanks to early access to the chicken egg farming model, people have a lot of experience and knowledge.

Tam Duong district and Thanh Van commune in particular are focusing on supporting people to build chicken farming models in the direction of organic agriculture to create a clean, safe, environment-friendly egg source, contributing to building the OCOP-qualified fayoumi egg brand. The problem of livestock environment in Thanh Van is also handled almost completely since all livestock households now use microbial products as bedding.

Building the Thanh Van herbal chicken egg brand

Apart from the application of biosafety farming methods, herbal egg production models have made their appearance in the egg capital of Thanh Van recently, building brands and aiming to increase value and income for farmers.

“Despite having strong development in chicken farming, supplying tens of millions of chicken eggs to the market each year, Thanh Van in particular and Vinh Phuc in general have certain limitations when it comes to building brands. The goal of our cooperative is to build the Thanh Van chicken egg brand, with the typical product being herbal chicken eggs,” said Tran Ngoc Tan, Director of Tan Hien Cooperative.

Establishing a linkage with Biovet Import - Export JSC, Tan conducts a production test with 50,000 herbal eggs per month. When raising hens to get herbal eggs, the most important thing is to use food made from plant protein while supplementing herbal essences and herbal antibiotics. As a result, egg output in the model increases by at least 20% and the eggs do not contain antibiotic residues. The selling price is also 20% higher than normal eggs.

From the success of Tan Hien Cooperative, Thanh Van commune is now testing 30,000 chickens to participate in the herbal egg production chain. There are also linkage models between cooperatives, farm owners and micro-organic fertilizer production facilities that are forming a circular agricultural chain.