On a late April morning, Pham Thi Nhan, born in 1992, in Duy Trinh Commune, Duy Xuyen District in Quang Nam, was at her 3,000-square-meter farm to begin her daily routine. 

She cleaned the coops, fed the fowl and the quails, checked the misting system and air conditioners, and turned on classical music. The melodies filled the space, where thousands of black fowls were thriving, producing about 2,000 eggs daily.

Surprisingly, this petite woman was once an employee at a major bank in HCM City, earning a substantial salary. After graduating from HCM City Banking University in 2015 and earning a master’s degree in economics, Nhan believed that her career would relate to finance in the bustling city.

However, in 2018, during pregnancy with her first child, a stroke forced her to spend over a month in the hospital. Though her daughter was born healthy, Nhan suffered lasting effects: slight facial deformity, reduced vision, and severe health decline. Her husband had to quit his job as a telecom engineer to return to Quang Nam to care for her and their child.

“I was in despair and became hopeless. I felt insecure about my appearance, my health was frail, and I thought all doors had closed,” Nhan recalled.

In 2019, when a local farm was put for sale, Nhan and her husband borrowed money to buy it and start anew. Lacking experience, she began with 200 pigs, but a swine fever outbreak three months later led to a loss of nearly VND500 million.

Nhan switched to raising black fowl, a small, nutrient-rich breed not yet common in Quang Nam. She traveled to Mekong Delta to purchase 3,000 chicks and adopted a clean farming model. 

On the first days, she faced difficulties such as the chickens being shy and easily startled, and the severe weather in the central region.

To improve their living conditions, Nhan and her husband researched and invested in a closed-loop farm with air conditioners, heaters, bio-bedding, and a sound system playing classical music eight hours daily. 

“Black chickens are sensitive: stress will reduce their appetite and egg production. Music helps them relax, stabilizes the flock, and improves egg quality,” she explained.

The farm now yields about 2,000 eggs daily, distributed to supermarkets and stores in Quang Nam, Da Nang, and Quang Ngai, and sold online. Fowl manure is sold to coffee plantations in the Central Highlands. The farm generates an average monthly revenue of VND150 million.

In 2021, “Hao Nhan” black fowl eggs earned a provincial 3-star OCOP certification. 

Ha Nam