Triangle Salan Chicken

Triangle Salan Chicken

　　Triangle Salan Chicken is a specialty of Sanjiao Town in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. Also known as Sanjiao Chicken or Shiqi Chicken, it is one of the high-quality local chicken breeds in Guangdong. Known for its large size, thick breast meat, plump physique, and delicious, tender, fragrant, and crispy bones, it enjoys fame both domestically and abroad. As early as the 1920s, it was exported to Hong Kong and Macau.

　　Salan Chicken, also called Sanjiao Chicken, gets its name from its place of origin, Salan Village in Sanjiao Town, Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. It is said to have been brought by farmers who migrated to Zhongshan from Shunde and Dongguan over 200 years ago. The breed has a moderate body size, with the advantages of tender meat, delicious flavor, and less subcutaneous fat, making it particularly suitable for preparing “boiled chicken.” In 1985, it was selected as a famous and high-quality specialty product of Guangdong and included in the Guangdong Poultry and Livestock Breed Chronicles.

　　Salan Chicken has a moderately sized head, often with an upright single comb featuring 6 to 7 comb teeth. Its body is plump with well-developed breast muscles. Roosters are mostly yellow or date-red, with black on their main wings—divided by the feather shaft, with the outer part being date-red and the inner part black. Some have closely adjacent black areas on either side of the feather shaft, while others are entirely black with only the feather tips being slightly date-red. Their tail feathers are mostly black, and some lack primary tail feathers. Hens are mostly yellow or speckled, with speckled being more common, and their backs display three colors: speckled yellow, speckled brown, and speckled tan. Their main wing feathers, divided by the feather shaft, also come in black, yellow, brown, or mixed black-and-speckled patterns. The color of their legs can be yellow or jade-white, with yellow being more common. Their skin is either yellow or jade-white, with jade-white being more prevalent. They lay about 70 to 90 eggs per year, with brown or light brown eggshells. Similar to Qingyuan Ma chickens, Salan chicks also have a strip of white down about 4 mm wide on each side of their backs, extending from the shoulders to the tail. After the first molt, these stripes disappear, and sexual dimorphism in feathering appears.

　　Due to its geographical location and resource advantages, Zhongshan became an early major exporter of broiler chickens to Hong Kong and Macau. During the three-year economic hardship period in the early 1960s, shortages of grain and feed posed significant challenges to the chicken farming industry. As exports of Salan Chicken declined, Hong Kong chicken farmers used exported Salan Chicken for breeding. However, due to the original breed’s low egg production and poor reproductive capacity, they introduced foreign breeds such as New Hampshire, Leghorn, and Rhode Island Red for crossbreeding. In the 1980s, they further introduced the recessive white Jabouille breed for crossing, and the resulting hybrids were all referred to as Shiqi hybrids. While retaining the color, aroma, and taste of Salan Chicken, Shiqi hybrids significantly improved productivity and gained popularity among chicken farmers and consumers. After the reform and opening up, inland farmers also heavily crossbred Salan Chicken in pursuit of economic returns, leading the purebred Salan Chicken to the brink of extinction. In 1999, the Zhongshan animal husbandry department established a base for the purification, rejuvenation, and hybrid utilization of Salan Chicken, gradually restoring this excellent genetic resource.

　　At the end of 2003, the municipal agriculture bureau decided to entrust Chaoxing Poultry Development Co., Ltd.—a leading agricultural enterprise in Zhongshan and the dominant player in the chicken farming industry—with the responsibility of preserving the Salan Chicken breed. With support from relevant parties, Chaoxing invested over 6 million yuan, applying modern breeding techniques such as “closed breeding” and “backcrossing” to carry out nearly ten generations of purification and rejuvenation. The project was declared a success, having achieved improvements in productivity indicators such as egg production rate, fertilization rate, and hatching rate—all increased by 5–10%. Growth rates also improved by approximately 10%. Standard-weight roosters over 120 days old now reach 2.3 kg, while hens reach 1.3–1.5 kg. It is reported that purified Salan Chicken has thin, crispy skin with less fat but rich flavor, is juicy without being greasy, has a strong and sweet aftertaste, fine and crispy bones, a moderate body size, and feathers in varied hues of red, black, and pale yellow. It also has bright red combs and plump meat.

　　Chaoxing Company was the first to reap the benefits of the successful purification and rejuvenation of Salan Chicken. In recent years, its broiler chicken production and sales have reached over 2 million birds. The company currently raises a stock of 140,000 chickens, with selling prices about 30–40% higher than similar products. In addition to expanding broiler farming, the company also uses some hens for egg production, with large quantities of meat and eggs being exported to Hong Kong and Macau.