The precious chicken Ho (or To chicken), which was a product of the ancient Dynasty, has beautiful colors, a majestic body, and a heroic figure, and is used by the people of Lac Tho as a worship animal on important occasions.
With the characteristics of a big, heavy, beautiful cross, firm, sweet, and fragrant meat, Ho chicken is always sought after. In particular, the most beautiful children selected to participate in competitions or exhibitions in traditional village festivals are all seen by many people in advance, but they are not easy to buy.
With a long tradition of raising Ho chickens, Mr. Nguyen Dang Chung's family is known as one of the households that owns the beautiful Ho chicken breed in Lac Tho village. He currently raises about 30 breeding chickens, of which the pair of male turkeys are children with outstanding characteristics from a young age, marked by him for breeding and are also one of the strong candidates.
Only the most satisfactory pair of chickens can be separated and locked separately, Mr. Chung said that chickens selected for breeding must go through 5 stages.
In phase 1, when the new chicken is in full bloom, you need to choose bright, agile eyes or run around.
In phase 2, the chickens were selected for 1-1.1 kg without disabilities, looking strong, with a balanced figure with a narrow back, high legs, shoulders, and dark yellow scales.
In phase 3, when the chicken weighs 3-3.5 kg, they start decoding, selecting each member to meet the standards.
In phase 4, the chickens start laying, see if they lay more or less, lay large or small eggs to choose from; whether the chickens are compact or not and the incubation rate is high or low to determine whether to keep them as breeds or switch to meat stores.
Finally, I decided to choose a pair of standard chickens.
Having participated in village exhibition competitions, Mr. Chung enthusiastically said: The chickens participating in the competition and display must rely on 5 criteria: head, hood, tail, leg. This Hoan Kiem Lake chicken of mine weighs 4.8kg. The beautiful strings are the hook (large like a bamboo stems), the sturt (moose), the plum color (ripe plum color) or the stout (color of black fabric), the fur is smooth, the body is shiny, the legs are high, the tail is petty, the figure is majestic. The chickens I raised weighed 3.4 kg, had smooth scales, were tall, and had bean sprout skin. Beautiful chickens must have the color of the plow (white color of the plow), the color of the feather (shared bird) or the color of the longan (color of ripe longan peel).
I raised this pair of breeding chickens for about 8-10 months, mainly in the form of free-range blankets, using agricultural food sources, absolutely without industrial bran, so in addition to beautiful and heavy branches. This is also a chicken breed with firm meat, crispy skin, and is especially delicious, so it is increasingly sought after by many people, said Mr. Chung.
According to the owner, the price of breeding chickens of each type is different: 1-day-old chickens, newly hatched chickens are 130,000 VND/head, 20-day-old chickens are 200,000-250,000 VND/head, 30-day-old chickens are 300,000-350,000 VND/head, breeding chickens (little chickens) are about 700,000 - 800,000/kg, breeding chickens are often inexpensive because it depends on many factors. For example, this pair of breeding chickens costs around 15-20 million/pair, and cannot even be priced because it depends on each person's feelings about the beauty.
Every year, in the spring, Mr. Le Trong Ha in Kien An (Hai Phong) returns to Lac Tho village to buy a pair of chickens that he likes to select through competitions and exhibitions. He said: "I especially love folk foods, especially rare chicken breeds like Ho chickens that are so spiritual, associated with tradition, and Dong Ho folk paintings, so every Tet holiday, I have to call to transfer money to order chickens in advance to make sure that if I don't join the government, I won't have to".
This pair of Ho chickens on display has been selected and the chickens are big and beautiful. However, he had to convince the owner to agree to sell because they wanted to keep it to cause seeds. Although the price is up to more than ten million/pair, with the rare and clean breed of ancient chickens, Mr. Ha feels it is worth the money the rice bowl spends.
