Looking for the “mascot” in the legend

It is thought that “An elephant with nine tusks, a chicken with nine spurs” is a story that only exists in legends, but in the mountainous district of Tan Son, over the past 10 years, Muong boy Nguyen Van Duc in Zone 2, Tan Phu commune, has been determined to “revive” precious chicken breeds that exist in real life, developing towards goods that bring high economic value.

The multi-spurred chicken has a heroic appearance, bright colors, a red comb, and a tail curved like a rainbow.

Having been attached to the teaching profession for many years, in the mind of the Muong boy, there is always a burning desire to get rich in his homeland. Having had a passion for chickens since I was a teenager, he realized that the land where I was born and raised had a rare 9-spur chicken breed (the scientific name is multi-spur chicken), which had high value but was not raised properly. Due to mixed breeds, in 2013, Mr. Duc was determined to start a business from this breed.

Chickens with multiple spurs were previously only found in the wild but were later domesticated and raised by people at home. They have quite different characteristics compared to other chicken breeds, such as legs with many spurs, usually 6–8 spurs, especially some with 9 spurs. The multi-spurred chicken has a heroic appearance with iridescent plumage, a red comb, bright eyes, a curvy tail like a rainbow, a resounding crow, big, strong and even legs, and the top spur is completely horned and curved like a sickle.

Mr. Duc’s cooked chicken is placed right at the gate of his house, so customers can come and see it directly.

In the early days of starting his business, Mr. Duc encountered many difficulties, especially in finding purebred chicken breeds because this breed is often raised scattered in people’s homes. During the first year, he had to roam around the villages in the district, knocking on every door to search, purchase, and select based on phenotype, weight, physical condition, and number of spurs on the legs, and try raising them. Experiment with 30 children at household size to gain experience. After a process of research and practice, he determined to set a goal of growing the chicken flock to 200, then 1,000 and increasingly expanding in number.

Through the process of breeding experiments, realizing that natural breeding had a success rate of only 30%, Mr. Duc invested money to buy three egg incubators, thereby increasing the success rate to more than 80%. The rate of chickens with multiple spurs in each flock is about 80%, although the eggs are all laid by the same mother. Notably, both roosters and hens have spurs and they appear as soon as the chickens hatch. However, the number of chickens with nine spurs is very rare; out of 1,000, there are only about three chickens with nine spurs.

Chicken spurs appear as soon as the chickens hatch.

In 2021, to develop this chicken breed in a modern direction, with a scale of goods along the chain from production to consumption, to replicate and become a way out of poverty for local ethnic minorities, Mr. Duc established Trung Du Sunny Company Limited, collaborating with more than 20 multi-spur chicken raising households in Tan Phu and Kiet Son communes of Tan Son district.

Currently, his multi-spur chicken farm has an area of more than 1 hectare, designed with cages, auxiliary areas and necessary tools, with a flock size of more than 2,000 chickens. According to calculations, each year, the revenue from selling commercial multi-spur chickens and breeding chickens reaches more than VND2 billion. Mr. Duc divides his multi-spur chickens into products of different levels, including broiler chickens, ornamental chickens, gift chickens, and premium chickens (chicken with nine spurs). Prices range from 200,000 to 300,000 VND/kg, but premium chicken costs from 9 million to 30 million VND. This is a rare item, so it has a very high price and is sought after by many people. Taking advantage of technology, Mr. Duc regularly posts and promotes 9-spur chicken products on Facebook and TikTok, thanks to which he has a number of familiar and potential customers.

Currently, Mr. Duc has linked up with a number of restaurants inside and outside the province to make multi-spur chicken one of the unique dishes in the restaurant’s cuisine.

Sharing his plans for the near future, the Muong man said he will work with farming households to deploy agricultural digitalization, including: Scanning QR codes to look up information such as farming location and farming process; food; and the age of chickens; moving forward to launch and test service packages for renting chickens; visiting farms of chicken-raising households; and experiencing cultural and culinary life in Muong ethnic villages... Hopefully, with passion, the enthusiasm of youth will help Mr. Duc bring his homeland’s products further and further and support ethnic people to improve their lives and get rich.

Thu Huong