Animal husbandry in DACHENG Region has been occupying an important position for many years because of its vast grassland and diversified forages. Pasture chicken project is first carried out in YUMING county of DACHENG, and nomads are encouraged to buy cheap indigenous chicken which are grazed on natural pasture in order to fully utilize local resources and make nomads, which are still poor, rapidly increase their income while the chicken can also eat pasture insects, such as grasshoppers.

It is known that pasture chicken has broad future for market. In the first place, the growing stage of indigenous chicken is relatively shorter, on average two month it can be offered for sale. In the second place, it spends nomad little time to take care the chickens, which will graze themselves freely and will migrate easily following the move of stock farm. Finally, the growing environment of the indigenous chicken is natural pasture, making the chicken meat delicious and nutritional. Take the YUMING county as example, it has more than 700 million MU grassland on which grow more than 400 kinds wild medical herb. There is no overstating the fact that the meat of pasture chicken, eating herbal medicine as well as drinking natural water coming from mountain, is a kind of “green” product.

Nomads are much interested in grazing indigenous chicken on grassland. In 2003, amounts of pasture chickens were up to 30 millions, which will up to 60 million in 2004. According to introduction, a big chicken producer is able to grazed nearly a 1000 indigenous chickens, about a 1000 guinea fowl and more than 800 turkeys this year. Pasture chickens are sold well at present in WULUMUQI and JICHANG city of XINGJIANG, the price of each indigenous chicken is between 20 Yuan (RMB) and 30 Yuan (RMB).