A local chicken in rural areas sells for hundreds of yuan, and a whole roast chicken in the supermarket is only 20 yuan. Why is it so cheap?

Guide: A rural chicken sells for hundreds of yuan, and a whole roast chicken in the supermarket is only 20 yuan. Why is it so cheap?

Chicken is the most common meat on our table. Whether it's going out to a restaurant or cooking at home, I eat chicken every once in a while.

Especially for friends who love to eat chicken, they will often buy and eat. The author has a friend, and their family loves chicken. Every time I go to his house to eat, chicken is an essential dish.

If you also love to eat chicken, especially if you often go to the market to buy chicken, you will find a strange phenomenon. The price of some so-called native chickens in the vegetable market is not cheap, especially when buying native chickens in rural areas. It is not surprising that 50 yuan per pound is not surprising. Generally, the price of one is more than 100 yuan, and the cheapest one costs more than ten yuan per pound.

But in the deli section of the supermarket, or in some shops that sell roast chicken and duck, the processed chicken they sell is very cheap. Often the price of a whole chicken is less than 20 yuan . The author once sold it. Give 18.9 yuan a roast chicken. This price is very different from the price of live chickens purchased in the market. Why are these chickens so cheap? Is it really safe to eat such cheap chicken? Let's find out.

There is a difference between chickens raised by farmers and chickens in the deli section of supermarkets

I remember that there was a news on the Internet a few years ago, and it was very popular. At that time, many people really believed it. That is, some people say that the chicken wings and drumsticks sold in some fast food restaurants are from some mutated chickens. Compared with ordinary chickens, the biggest feature of these chickens is that they have several pairs of wings or four legs. , Otherwise, why are there so many chicken wings?

In fact, this is impossible. None of the chickens and chicken-related products sold on the market are mutated, and they are all one chicken, one pair of chicken wings and two legs.

However, the chickens raised by farmers and the roasted chickens sold in the cooked food area are from different breeds. The former is the familiar "yellow-feather chicken" and the latter is the "white-feather chicken", which is a chicken imported from abroad. Variety.

A few decades ago, China mainly cultivated yellow-feather chickens, which are now commonly known as "local chickens" by many people. They are a kind of chicken that was born and raised in China. For example, the native chickens raised in rural areas are fed with grain or some green vegetables. The scale of farming is not large, and because of the slow growth rate, it generally takes about three months to be released, so their prices have not been low. .

Especially in large-scale farming, it is even more troublesome. Chickens like to fight very much. If the epidemic prevention is not in place, large-scale deaths will easily occur.

It is precisely because of these various reasons that the price of this kind of chicken in the market is relatively high. The better quality chickens cost 20 yuan per kilogram, and the lesser ones cost 10 yuan per kilogram.

With the continuous improvement of living standards in China, the market demand for chicken has also increased significantly. If you continue to breed native chickens, the cost will be too high for farmers, and its high price will also make it difficult for consumers to accept. . So began to introduce a fast-growing chicken from abroad, the white-feathered chicken.

What are the advantages of white feather chicken?

In order to solve the problem of everyone eating chicken, China introduced a batch of high-quality white-feathered broilers from abroad in the 1980s. Compared with traditional domestic chickens, it also has a natural genetic advantage.

The first is the rapid growth rate of this chicken.

Traditional chicken farming takes two months at the fastest, and three months at the slowest. However, the growth rate of white-feathered broilers is significantly faster than that of it. It usually only takes about 40 days from hatching to slaughtering. In such a short period of time, these chickens can grow to more than 4 pounds.

The second is to eat not much, but a lot of meat.

The meat yield of white-feathered broilers is also very high, which is also unmatched by traditional native chickens. The innate advantage of this kind of chicken is that it eats less, but it grows fast and grows strong. On average, as long as each chicken is fed 1.6 kg of feed, it can grow more than 1 kg of meat , which shows that its meat yield is very high. This will greatly reduce the cost of farming for farmers.

The third is that white feather broilers are more suitable for large-scale breeding, and the cost of breeding will be lower.

White feather broiler seems to be a kind of chicken that is naturally suitable for large-scale farming. It not only has the characteristics of strong disease resistance and does not like to fight, but also can greatly save labor costs as long as the epidemic prevention of the flock is done. Reduced farming costs. In some modern farms, white-feathered broilers adopt large-scale breeding technology, and one breeder can easily breed 10,000-20,000 chickens.

Therefore, the whole roast chicken sold in some supermarkets on the market, as well as chicken legs, chicken wings, chicken hearts, chicken livers, chicken intestines, etc., all come from this kind of chicken. With the characteristics of low breeding cost, short slaughtering time and high chicken qualification rate, they were able to quickly occupy the market.

Don't look at the price of a whole chicken in the cooked food area of ​​the supermarket is less than 20 yuan, but it is also very profitable for the operators, because the price of their wholesale white feather broilers is as low as a few yuan a piece, and the profit may also account for to about half.

As for what some netizens are worried about, these cheap roast chickens may have been fed a lot of hormone-based foods, otherwise they would not be so cheap. This statement is unfounded, and farmers will not spend more money.

For one thing, these white-feathered broilers already grow fast and do not need to be fed hormone-like foods at all. Second, if you buy hormone drugs, the cost will increase a lot.

Of course, there is another very important point, that is, the state is very strict on the control of such hormone drugs, and the products must be quarantined by relevant departments before they are put on the market. If they are found, they will be fined several times. Therefore, for farmers There is absolutely no need for this.

In other words, these chickens are cheap but safe to eat. However, because the white feather broiler grows fast, it also has disadvantages, such as loose meat, less flavor, and low price.

Therefore, white feather broilers are generally used to make grilled chicken, fried chicken, or processed into chicken chops and chicken skewers. The traditional yellow feather chicken is used to cook into a large plate of chicken, white-cut chicken, or stewed soup.

Now I understand why roast chicken is several times cheaper than live chicken, and the same is true for other roast ducks.