Bian chicken conservation: seeds for the future
Scientific researchers are committed to conservation work, leaving genetic resources for local endangered poultry fowls, and preserving possibilities for research and market development
Chick number "0947".
On July 1st, the 16th generation side chickens were in the breeding farm chicken coop. Each chicken has its own number.
Bianji has been kept for seventeen generations, and all the recording materials are neatly placed in the filing cabinet.
On the first day of the chick's birth, the researchers put an aluminum number plate on each chicken.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee
On July 1, Ye Hongxin checked the status of the side chickens in the conservation farm.
A08-A09 edition photography / Beijing News reporter Nie Hui (except signature)
The fluffy side chicks huddled in the corners, their creamy yellow beaks shining in the light.
Mo-dotted eyes, looking around cowardly.
On July 5, Ye Hongxin, an associate researcher of the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine) of Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, took the chicks out of the cage and held them in the palm of their hands in the National Bian Chicken Conservation Farm in Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province. Vaccinate the side chicken chicks that have broken their shells for a week.
This year's side chicken hatching was delayed by a month compared to previous years.
On June 28, a new batch of Bian chickens broke their shells, and 2,500 "twitter" chicks were the protagonists of the seventeenth generation of Bian chicken conservation farms.
Bianji, named for its growth in northern Shanxi and both sides of the Great Wall in southern Inner Mongolia, has been bred for hundreds of years in northern my country.
As a product of the blending of history and culture, side chicken has unique cold resistance and roughage.
While supplying people's daily meat and eggs, it has also become the main ingredient for local famous products in northern Shanxi.
However, in recent years, with the impact of foreign commercial chickens and the entry of farmers into cities, Bian chickens have lost their living space and have been squeezed into the corner of history.
The unique genes of Bian Chicken are not only a gene pool for future changes, but also an indispensable raw material for cultivating new breeds.
Wei Qingyu, head of the National Bian Chicken Conservation Farm, said that once the Bian chicken breed goes extinct, the loss of germplasm resources will be irreparable.
In 2006, Bianji was included in the National List of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources Protection and became an endangered local poultry breed.
For more than ten years, two generations of researchers at the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine have been engaged in the conservation of Bian chicken breeds, leaving the genetic resources of Bian chicken, leaving a possibility for future research and market development.
numbered chicken
In Dongyang Experimental Base, Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province, the experimental corn field marked with the number is surrounded by simple red brick walls, forming a paradise for side chicken breeders.
If it weren't for the "National Side Chicken Conservation Farm" plaque hanging at the door, the chicken farm in the middle of the farmland would be considered a warehouse for storing grain.
Ye Hongxin walked into the chicken farm, the high-pitched crowing of the rooster and the "clicking" of the hen came one after another.
Bianji Conservation Farm, which looks deserted from the outside, shows its vitality.
From the hatching room, the chick house, to the adult house, a circle is formed.
Ye Hongxin said that after the eggs enter the incubator to hatch the chicks, they will be transferred to the chick house; the chicks will be moved into the adult house after 7 weeks to grow, lay eggs and provide scientific research data on seed conservation.
Every spring, workers will number the eggs according to the relationship between the paternal and maternal lines, and put them into the incubator to incubate the new generation of side chickens.
Ye Hongxin pulled out the idle incubator and could see a number marked on each grid.
From egg collection, hatching, to chick hatching, numbers accompany the egg-to-chicken transition.
On the first day after the chickens are born, after the vaccination is completed, an aluminum number plate will be fixed on the wings, and then they will be classified into the chicken coop according to the number.
"Looking at this number, you can tell which hen laid the egg and who its father was."
Ye Hongxin took out the chick number 0947 and looked at its feathers and cockscomb, "This belongs to the single-crest of Ma Yu".
Ma Yu means that the feathers of chickens are hemp-colored, and part of the pedigree of Bian Chicken comes from Shanxi No-Ma Chicken.
According to the feather color and comb shape of Bian chicken, the Bian chicken breeding research group divided them into 5 strains: single-crest with hemp feathers, single-crest with black feathers, single-crest with white feathers, double-crested white feathers, and compound-crested colored feathers.
According to Ye Hongxin, the 2,500 chicks that have just hatched for a week are the 17th generation side chickens, and they are also their protection and research objects this year.
Tian Yunqing, a worker in the conservation farm, is responsible for feeding the feed every four hours to ensure that the chicks are full while leaving enough time for an empty stomach.
In the corner of the chick house, buckets filled with water are placed still.
Ye Hongxin said that chicks are sensitive and the drinking water should be close to room temperature before drinking.
The room temperature requirements of the chick house are equally strict, with thermometers installed around, and the temperature is adjusted as the chicks age.
For one-week-old chicks, the temperature should be controlled at 34 degrees Celsius to 36 degrees Celsius.
For two-week-old chicks, reduce the temperature by 3 degrees Celsius.
On July 5, the one-week-old chicks will receive their second vaccination and beak trimming.
Ye Hongxin held the chick's small head, and the chicken's beak aimed at the hot iron piece on the beak-cutting machine and melted the tip.
"The lower corners of the mouth grow fast, and grind them off a little more, otherwise they will become 'the earth and the sky' when they grow up." After the beaks were cut off, the chicks were put back into the chicken coop. Ten minutes later, the chicks began to peck normally.
It is difficult to distinguish male and female chicks. Wei Qingyu said that after a month, high-quality roosters and hens will be screened according to the sex of the side chickens to form a new breeding family, and the growth curve and various performances of the side chickens will be observed and recorded.
More importantly, leave the eggs for the next generation to breed.
From well known to endangered
The researchers told reporters that Bian chicken was once a famous specialty chicken in my country and was widely cultivated on both sides of the Great Wall in northern Shanxi and southern Inner Mongolia.
Because the locals used to call the Great Wall "side wall", Bianji got its name.
Because it is widely cultivated in Youyu County, Shanxi Province, it is widely known as "Youyu Chicken" locally.
According to Wei Qingyu, in the early 1970s, the peak breeding volume of side chickens reached 1 million.
Ding Fuxiang has been engaged in poultry research before retiring and is the first-generation head of the Bian Chicken Breeding Farm.
She combed the development history of side chicken.
Bianji was formed during the population migration of "going west" during the reign of Yongzheng and Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, and it is the product of cultural exchanges between regions in my country.
The Killing Tiger Mouth in Youyu County is one of the "West Mouth".
The Liaoning Big Bone Chickens migrated to the surrounding areas of the Great Wall with the population, and crossed with local No-Ma chickens to form Bian chicken breeds.
Bian chicken is cold-resistant, can survive in an environment of minus 30 degrees Celsius, and has a long egg-laying cycle.
Historically, side chickens have been free-range in farms, hatched on a small scale, and self-sufficient.
In the early 1990s, as people's living standards improved, the demand for meat and eggs rose.
Fast-growing broilers and laying hens entered the Chinese market, and large chicken farms began to supply meat and eggs to rural and urban areas.
Free-range broilers produce fewer eggs, grow slowly, and suffer from the impact of exotic breeds.
The Jinyang White Chicken bred by the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine has taken the lead in the country to modernize the laying hens in cages.
But with the introduction of foreign breeds, Jinyang White Chicken was flooded by the market until it died out.
Jinyang White Chicken was once a scientific research project of Ding Fuxiang.
Although she regrets the demise of Jinyang White Chicken, it is a cultivated commercial chicken after all.
But Bian chicken is an original breed developed locally, and Ding Fuxiang pays more attention to the preservation of Bian chicken genes.
Wei Qingyu said that the seeds of crops can be stored in a vacuum, and the sperm and eggs of cattle and sheep can be cryopreserved, but chickens, as the most common small poultry, can only rely on the circulation of chickens and eggs for breeding.
Losing any part of the chicken or the egg, the side chicken is forever dead.
Around 2000, as a large number of farmers migrated to cities to work and live, leaving villages and courtyards, free-range poultry gradually lost soil, local chicken breeds became less and less, and side chicken breeding was gradually marginalized.
In 2006, the former Ministry of Agriculture launched the second national census of livestock and poultry genetic resources.
Bian chicken is included in the "National List of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources Protection", which is an excellent local poultry breed at the national level of conservation.
Wei Qingyu said that in Youyu County and other places of origin, the number of Bianji chickens in the stock is less than 1,000.
"Rescue" side chicken
In order to protect the genetic resources of Bian chicken, in 2007, Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences organized a scientific research project to study the characteristics and breed selection of Bian chicken, and Ding Fuxiang became the project host.
Ding Fuxiang explained that the bred commercial chickens lay more eggs and grow meat faster, but their genes were similar.
The local breeds of livestock and poultry left in history have unique genetic resources and are particularly important for the future breeding of new breeds.
Ding Fuxiang led the team and went to remote villages where Bianji might be preserved to find the source.
Ding Fuxiang recalled that a group of people walked along the mountain roads and rivers to search, saw chickens with similar appearance, chased the chickens to the farmer's house.
"You can buy chickens to buy chickens, and you can buy eggs to buy eggs."
Youyubian chicken is well known locally, and diners even go to remote mountain villages to buy it at twice the price of other live chickens.
The price is high, the quantity is small, and some breeders are seriously mixed in order to increase the breeding quantity.
Wei Qingyu and Ye Hongxin, who participated in the collection, both felt the difficulty of finding purebred side chickens.
In more than half a month, the project team collected only 5 roosters, 4 hens and 439 breeding eggs in 7 villages in the two counties.
Every chicken collected is regarded as a treasure by Ding Fuxiang.
On the way back to Taiyuan from Youyu County, a rooster suffered from heat stroke. Ding Fuxiang carried the chicken to the animal hospital for rescue.
The eggs collected produced 211 chicks, resulting in 104 hens and 96 males.
Without chicken coops, the project team called three offices in the office building to raise chickens.
These bred side chickens form the original flock (generation 0) of the conservation farm and become the basic resources for conservation and breeding.
In the cabinet of the research institute, all the records since the establishment of the original flock of Bianji have been stored.
In the dusty records, Ding Fuxiang wrote down the different states of the chickens and chicks: when the temperature is right, the chicks are evenly distributed in the cage, and when they are resting, their heads and abdomen are stretched out; cry.
In the second year of the project, the project team began to undertake the task of species conservation.
Ding Fuxiang's team completed multiple generations of purebred breeding of Bianji, formed 5 lines with different appearance characteristics, and established a complete pedigree file.
Through the application of the Bian Chicken Breed Conservation Project, in March 2015, the former Ministry of Agriculture awarded the conservation farm a plaque of "National Bian Chicken Preservation Farm".
Bian chicken preservation has thus become the work of Ding Fuxiang and his colleagues for more than ten years.
"People advance and chickens retreat"
Outside the subway station entrance of Line 2, Electronic West Street, Xiaodian District, Taiyuan City, the office building of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Research Institute, built in the 1960s, is hidden behind cluttered trees, in stark contrast to the high-rise buildings in the distance.
Passing by the intersection of Dianxi West Street and Xinrong Road, Ye Hongxin pointed to an open space surrounded by the intersection, "This used to be the chicken coop of the Bian Chicken Breeding Farm."
From the first generation of side chickens, the conservation farm moved into the chicken farm of the research institute.
The standard chicken farm built in the 1980s has complete breeding facilities, as well as feed processing plants and living quarters.
The environment around the chicken farm was empty. Ding Fuxiang recalled that there was a lot of farmland outside the chicken farm, and few residents lived there.
With the development of the city, the land next to the research institute has been rapidly developed, new high-rise buildings have spread to the surrounding area of the research institute, and buildings have also been built on the original land of the research institute.
In 2013, Electronic Street Road, Xiaodian District, Taiyuan City extended westward, and the newly built road passed through the original land of the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine.
The Bianji Breeding Farm is incompatible with the surrounding modern residential buildings, and the contradiction of coexistence between humans and animals follows one after another.
Ding Fuxiang recalled that the seed conservation farm often received complaints from the surrounding people, and the scale of the seed conservation farm was gradually reduced, "from an area of 50 acres, it was squeezed into a corner as large as five acres."
According to the official website of the Taiyuan Municipal Government, in early 2017, some people reported to the Central Second Environmental Protection Inspectorate that "the noise from the chicken farm disturbed the people, and the chicken manure stinks into the sky", and some people were worried about contracting bird flu.
The inspection team will assign the report to the territory for processing, interview the person in charge of the chicken farm, and order the chicken farm to relocate.
After the Xiaodian area is designated as a prohibited area, the conservation farm can no longer keep chickens.
In March 2018, the Bian Chicken Farm located in the forbidden area of Xiaodian District was closed and relocated.
Looking back at the photos taken during the transfer of the breeding farm, Wei Qingyu still couldn't help sighing.
Side chicken transfers are prone to stress reactions that affect diet and egg production.
The temporarily rented Longchidong Farm in Yingze District has poor conditions for the chicken coop, so the ceiling can only be temporarily erected with plastic film to keep the chicken coop warm.
The Bianji Breeding Farm has been wandering outside for two years. At the end of 2019, it finally moved into the abandoned brick kiln warehouse of the Dongyang Experimental Base of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Wei Qingyu took workers to connect the water and electricity, smoothed the ground, kept warm, and rebuilt it into a chicken coop for the National Border Chicken Conservation Farm.
Although the conditions are still rough, Wei Qingyu is satisfied, "At least there is a stable place, and there is no need to move around."
"National Conservation Farm"
On July 5, Wei Qingyu entered the Bian Chicken Conservation Farm to vaccinate the chicks.
After putting on the protective clothing, Wei Qingyu put on the special rubber shoes on the court.
Wei Qingyu introduced that in order to ensure the safety of the conservation farm, outsiders are not allowed to enter the conservation farm.
Vehicles and personnel delivering feed must also be disinfected when they enter the nursery.
"No advanced disinfection equipment, manual disinfection with a watering can."
The side chickens in the conservation farm are not just ordinary breeding. The researchers need to collect relevant data on the side chickens.
Daily record the daily egg production and whether each chicken lays eggs.
Uniform weighing every two weeks, 300-day-old and 500-day-old must be weighed and registered.
When doing chick hatching, after each hen lays eggs, the eggs should be placed into the incubator according to the hen's number.
Make sure each egg has a unique number and record its generational relationship.
At the same time, it is necessary to avoid the decline of inbreeding during conservation.
After Ding Fuxiang retired, the baton for Bianji's breeding was handed over to Wei Qingyu and the others.
Speaking of the conservation farm, Wei Qingyu often calls it "our conservation farm".
Wei Qingyu is very confident, "Among all the breeding farms in Shanxi Province, the conditions of Bianji breeding farms may be poor, but the enforcement standards are the strictest."
The incubator in the conservation farm never hatches eggs for others even if it is idle.
"That money can't be earned." Some leaders found Wei Qingyu and wanted to use the technology of the conservation farm and the incubator to hatch peacock eggs, but Wei Qingyu refused.
Nothing from the Bianji Breeding Farm will be loaned out, and the things that have appeared on the farm are not allowed to be returned to the farm.
After entrusting a company to incubate the chicks, Wei Qingyu would rather give the egg basket away than bring it back.
"Even if it is disinfected, I am worried that some corners will not be disinfected cleanly, and the virus will be brought into the conservation farm."
Wei Qingyu calculated the daily expenses of the breeding farm: an adult chicken eats 2 taels of feed a day, and the project team studies the feed formula according to the breeding standards to meet the developmental requirements of side chickens at various stages. One catty of feed is two cents more expensive than the market feed.
In addition to water, electricity, labor and transportation costs, the conservation farm spent nearly 700,000 yuan last year.
The annual income of the breeding farm from the sale of chickens and eggs is only more than 100,000 yuan.
"If we calculate income and expenditure, we can't call it investment, we are throwing money to protect seed."
With limited funds, the conservation farm maintains about 2,000 side chickens every year.
The scale of 2,000 chickens meets the needs of national conservation, and can also retain the original characteristics of the side chickens.
In August 2021, on the basis of the national resource census, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs re-identified and re-authorized the Shanxi Bian Chicken National Breeding Farm "National Bian Chicken Breeding Farm".
Among the re-identified national-level breeding farms, Bianji breeding farms continue to be among them.
Wei Qingyu said, "It shows that our work is still recognized by the state."
On the wall of the project team's office, pictures of Bianji and the management specifications of Bianji for each generation are posted.
Talking about the achievements of Bian chicken breeding, Wei Qingyu said, "If you catch any chicken in the chicken coop, you can find its ancestors. Like the family tree, it has reached the 17th generation."
Looking forward to marketization
Wei Qingyu was also worried that Bianji would disappear from people's consciousness.
The reporter found in interviews that many egg and broiler chicken dealers in farmers' markets in Taiyuan did not sell side chickens and side eggs.
Many citizens also said that they knew nothing about Bianji.
Han Runsheng, the head of the free-range breeding base in Longchidong, once raised side chickens in the mountains and forests, and plans to seize the market with high-quality side chickens and side eggs.
But after two years of operation, Han Runsheng gave up the large-scale breeding of side chickens and left more than 30 hens to lay eggs for his family to eat.
"Many people don't understand Bianji, and no one wants to pay high prices for Bianji."
Wei Qingyu introduced that eggs are rich in lecithin, which is an important nutrient needed by the human body.
The proportion of yolk of ordinary eggs is only 22%-23%, and the proportion of yolk of side eggs is much higher than that of ordinary chickens, which can be as high as 30%.
In order to adapt to the development of the market, the Bianji Breeding Farm has developed a matching breeding of two varieties to meet the market demand for Bian chicken meat and eggs.
In order to promote side eggs and side chickens, Wei Qingyu erected a publicity board for side chickens outside the research institute, and pushed tricycles to the college family home for sales.
When they provide scientific and technological services in mountainous and rural areas in various places, they bring the materials of side chicken for promotion.
Wei Qingyu told reporters that the promotion and utilization of the preserved chicken resources also requires market promotion and promotion.
"Simple conservation lacks vitality, and the ultimate goal of conservation is to develop and utilize."
In June this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs launched the third census of livestock and poultry genetic resources and sequenced the whole genome of Bian chicken.
Wei Qingyu expects that with the completion of gene sequencing, the protection policy of Bian chicken will be more perfect, and the benign interaction between Bian chicken conservation and market development will be realized.
After the vaccination of the seventeenth generation Bianji, Wei Qingyu's clothes were soaked with sweat.
Looking at the jubilant side chickens in the chicken coop, Wei Qingyu began to think about contacting the business to bring the sixteenth generation side chickens that had ended the breeding experiment to the market.
Farmers can continue to breed, and after the egg-laying cycle is over, they can also be sold as broilers. "This is also a feature shared by side chicken eggs."
Beijing News reporter Nie Hui