Applying science and technology to build a process of raising red-eared chickens and creating purebred nucleus flocks to produce breeds, providing them to breeders in Cuc Phuong National Park and neighboring provinces has contributed to the conservation and sustainable development of red-eared chicken genes.
In the project "Improving the red-eared chicken breeding process" under the Gene Fund Program, led by the Center for Rescue, Conservation and Development of Organisms, the breeding of native red-eared chickens has been developed and widely applied in the provinces of Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An...
The red-eared chicken breed, derived from jungle fowl, has good resistance, sweet, fragrant, soft meat, and is popular in the market. It has been researched and domesticated in recent years.
According to the veterinarian, Deputy Director of the Center for Rescue, Conservation and Development of Organisms, project manager, this is a valuable, endemic livestock gene source with high economic value. However, due to small-scale farming conditions and the lack of application of scientific and technical advances, productivity is unstable and the quality of breeding chickens is limited.
After 3 years of implementation (2020-2023), the project has proposed scientific solutions to develop indigenous chicken farming in general and red-eared chickens in particular, such as selecting and building a nucleus red-eared chicken flock, and completing the process of raising red-eared chickens for reproduction and sale. The center has built a purebred breed group of over 300 hens. For the production chicken flock, two models have been built in Thanh Hoa and Ninh Binh with a scale of 1,000 hens, and 4 commercial flock models with a scale of 2,000/head/year, thereby preserving and sustainably developing the genetic resources of red-eared chickens.
The results of the research after selection showed that the egg productivity/hen/year increased from 1.16-3.74; the rate of fertile eggs increased from 6.04-11.39% compared to the flock before selection. This brought about an economic efficiency of 39.29 million VND compared to the mass-raised flock in households. The facilities applying the research results do not have to invest in basic research but benefit from the research results. Therefore, the profits gained in production and business will be greater and promptly meet market demand.
According to the results of the project models, the profit/producing hen is about 500,000 VND and the profit/1000 commercial chickens sold is about 56 to 88 million VND. Thus, the project can bring in annual profits of about 3.37 billion VND for breeding chickens and about over 4 billion VND for commercial chickens.
To achieve the above success, the application of modern science and technology in harmony with traditional knowledge in the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources as well as the role of stakeholders are of great significance.
According to Dr. Hoang Xuan Thuy, preserving and exploiting valuable genetic resources through scientific research will increase profits for livestock breeders, promote livestock expansion, attract labor resources to participate in the field, create more jobs, and stabilize income for workers.
This work simultaneously creates products that meet the demand for high quality and safe food for society. Improving the quality of life contributes to sustainable socio-economic development, contributing to hunger eradication and poverty reduction for ethnic minorities in mountainous districts of Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces.
In addition, it meets the increasing demand of society for clean food sources, changes the way of thinking and doing things, limits deforestation, and contributes to protecting biodiversity and the ecological environment.
