Shiqi Chicken

Shiqi Chicken

　　The Shalan Chicken, originally produced in Shalan Market in Sanjiao Town, hence its name, is also known as "Sanjiao Chicken." As a large number of Shalan Chickens were transshipped through Shiqi to Guangzhou and various destinations in Hong Kong and Macau, it is also referred to as "Shiqi Chicken." This breed is renowned across Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau for its tender and smooth meat, delicious flavor, and moderate size, making it especially suitable for making "boiled chicken." In recent years, livestock workers in Hong Kong have used the Shalan Chicken as the dam line, the Three-Yellow Bearded Chicken as the sire line, and appropriately incorporated bloodlines from the New Hampshire Chicken to develop a new breed called "Shiqi Hybrid," which now dominates 80% of the broiler market in Hong Kong.

　　The origin of the Shalan Chicken breed is said to be from chicken breeds brought by farmers who migrated from Shunde and Dongguan to Zhongshan over 200 years ago, and has been developed through long-term selective breeding. There are currently 400,000 hens, producing around 14 million chicks annually.

　　[Breed Type and Place of Origin]

　　Shiqi Chicken is a meat-type breed, originating and primarily produced in the Sanjiao Town area of Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. It is mainly distributed in Zhongshan City and Shunde District of Foshan City, with a certain number also found in Panyu District of Guangzhou City.

　　1 Main Characteristics: The body is well-built with well-developed breast muscles. Most have an upright single comb with 6–7 comb teeth; the comb, earlobes, and wattles are all red. The beak is yellow. The iris is orange-yellow. The shanks can be either yellow or white, with yellow being more common. The skin is mostly white, with a few being yellow. Roosters typically have feathers in shades of yellow and dark red, with some individuals having black or brownish-yellow feathers on the abdomen (speckled chest), and tail feathers mostly black. Hens usually have yellow and mottled feathers. Chicks have mostly yellow down feathers, with a white down band on each side of the back extending from the shoulders to the tail.

　　2 Conservation Method: Both on-site conservation in conservation farms and gene banks are used. The conservation farm is established by Zhongshan Chaoxing Poultry Development Company for on-site protection, and the National Local Chicken Breed Gene Bank (Jiangsu) introduced conservation in 2000.

　　[Production Performance]

　　1 Adult Weight and Meat Production: Roosters average 2,280 grams, hens average 1,490 grams. At 120 days old, the semi-eviscerated slaughter rate is 72.9% for roosters and 82.4% for hens; the fully eviscerated slaughter rate is 66.5% for roosters and 67.8% for hens.

　　2 Reproductive Performance: Average age at first egg is 150–180 days; under cage-raised conditions, the average age at first egg is 147 days, with an annual egg production of 70–90 eggs and an average egg weight of 45 grams. The average fertilization rate of breeding eggs is 92%, and the average hatching rate of fertilized eggs is 91%. Broodiness is weak.

　　[Development and Utilization]

　　Shiqi Chicken has tender and smooth meat, a delicious flavor, and low subcutaneous fat content. It was selected as one of Guangdong Province’s famous, high-quality, and special products in 1985. To rescue and protect this local brand and restore its “pure lineage,” Zhongshan City began efforts to purify and revitalize the Shalan Chicken in Sanjiao Town ten years ago. The purified and revitalized Shiqi Hybrid chickens have increased the annual egg production of hens from the original 70–90 to 120–130. Calculating an average increase of 40 eggs per hen per year, the current Chaoxing Poultry Development Co., Ltd. houses 140,000 breeding chickens, yielding 5.6 million additional eggs and 4.5 million additional chicks annually. At 2.5 yuan per chick, this results in an additional annual income of 11.25 million yuan.