Nguyen Van Phuc, a 26-year-old man from Hanoi's Soc Son district, has made a name and a living for himself by raising pigeons.
Phuc taking care of his birds
Previously Phuc worked in IT, but his love for birds went back to childhood. Even as a little boy he loved birds, but when he decided to give up his career to raise songbirds many of his friends and family thought it was a bad idea.
He started in 2009 with 30 pairs of spotted doves and 100 pairs of pigeons. Phuc, having no training, had to learn the craft on his own, seeking proper breeding methods from his father and people in surrounding communities.
Bird farm
When the bird flu epidemic hit in 2009 it took more than 200 pairs of birds. "I was so disappointed that I thought about quitting. My mother even told me that perhaps I had made a mistake in choosing to do this," he said.
But he continued, spending the next two months travelling and learning how to properly raise birds. To date he has 200 square metres in which he keeps his birds, and earns hundreds of millions of VND per year.
A pair of rare pigeons from the Netherlands
In addition he trains spotted doves to become songbirds. It takes one to two years for him to train a bird to sing.
"I've sold song birds for as much as VND19 million (USD906.5),” he boasted.
