Chongqing, January 12 (China News Service) -- Title: Post-95s Returning Entrepreneurs Happily Become "Ostrich Managers"
Author Zhang Xu
Ostrich meat and eggs are edible, their feathers can be exported to Africa and other places to be made into ornaments or dusters for wiping precision instruments, and their skin can be made into high-end leather goods... When it comes to the "ostrich economy", Fan Zhiheng, born in 1997, talks endlessly.
On January 9, Fan Zhiheng, wearing a safety helmet, conducted a live broadcast at an ostrich breeding base in Guanba Town, Wansheng Economic and Technological Development Zone, Chongqing. (Photo by He Penglei, China News Service)Recently, at an ostrich breeding base in Guanba Town, Wansheng Economic and Technological Development Zone, Chongqing, Fan Zhiheng, wearing a red helmet, fed ostriches while livestreaming. "Ostriches are very popular online. Soon after I started livestreaming, people started watching, and some jokingly called them 'long-legged ostriches'," said Fan Zhiheng. He currently has six main accounts and a livestreaming team of seven people. At its peak, they sold 13 ostriches in a single day.
Industry insiders say that ostriches are now being farmed on a large scale worldwide, with ostrich farming industries distributed in provinces such as Yunnan, Shandong, Hebei, Qinghai, and Guangdong in China.
After graduating from university, Fan Zhiheng worked in design and sales at a real estate company. "Later, I found that most of the farmers in my hometown were from the older generation." Fan Zhiheng believed that his hometown's beautiful mountains and rivers should not fail to attract young people, so when he learned about ostrich farming, he decided to return to his hometown to become an "ostrich manager".
On January 9, Fan Zhiheng feeds ostriches at an ostrich breeding base in Guanba Town, Wansheng Economic and Technological Development Zone, Chongqing. (Photo by He Penglei, China News Service)Fan Zhiheng traveled to Guangdong, Hebei, Shandong, and other places to learn techniques, and even partnered with someone in Guangdong to set up a breeding base, becoming familiar with many processes involved in ostrich farming. In 2020, Fan Zhiheng purchased 120 ostrich chicks from Hebei and airlifted them to Chongqing to raise them himself, but none of the chicks survived. He then purchased another 60, which also died for unknown reasons.
It was only then that he realized ostrich farming was not simple, and there were many technical details that needed to be studied. He dissected and compared different birds to find the reasons for his failures. It turned out that ostrich chicks had different requirements for environmental temperature depending on their growth stage, and their feed also required a "combination of coarse and fine grains." Based on summarizing his experiences and lessons learned, Fan Zhiheng's ostrich farming finally succeeded in 2021. After about 10 months of farming, the first batch of ostriches was ready for market.
But how to open up sales channels became his new challenge. At that time, he carried ostrich meat in his backpack and went to restaurants to promote it. Initially, the results were not good, as people did not know much about ostrich meat and the conversion rate was extremely low.
"During that period, live-streaming e-commerce was booming, and my classmate, who worked in a related field, gave me a lot of advice," Fan Zhiheng said. "Going online" brought him a massive number of customers and orders, and he also realized he could expand his ostrich farming business. In the process, Fan Zhiheng also witnessed the development and improvement of the local cold chain logistics.
Fan Zhiheng then explored a new "ostrich economy" model in the area, leading local villagers and college graduates who returned to their hometowns to start businesses and get rich by providing ostrich seedlings, breeding technology and sales channels.
Bai Jia, a local villager, told reporters that since 2021, she has purchased ostrich chicks from Fan Zhiheng every year and sold them through him, expanding her ostrich herd from a few to forty or fifty. Fan Xinyu, 23, learned about Fan Zhiheng's ostrich farming story online when she graduated in 2024. She not only returned to her hometown to raise ostriches herself, but also cooperated with farmers in the same way as Fan Zhiheng, raising hundreds of ostriches annually.
On January 9, a child experiences feeding ostriches at the Chongqing Shiheng Ostrich Breeding Base. (Photo by He Penglei, China News Service)According to statistics from the Guanba Town government, in the first year Fan Zhiheng returned to his hometown to start his business, he was the only college graduate engaged in agriculture in the town. Now, that number has risen to seven. Fan Zhiheng said that in the future, he will further expand the scale of breeding and sales, and explore new projects such as ostrich tourism and study tours. (End)
