Making chicken for Tet offering, price is 3 times higher than usual, many establishments refuse to 'receive goods'

From early morning on the 30th of Tet, there were many people waiting to have chickens slaughtered at Hung Dung market. Photo: Viet Phuong

At Hung Dung market, Vinh city, from dawn, people waiting to slaughter chickens were crowded at the slaughterhouses. Ms. Le Thi Phuong in Van Tien block, Hung Dung woke up early to take 3 chickens to slaughter. She said, "I will prepare 2 chickens for worship and 1 chicken for meat. Although the service of preparing chickens for Tet is crowded, the wait is long, the price is higher, but I still accept it because the house is cramped, and I don't know the technique of setting up the worship chickens beautifully."

Chicken processing service prices increase on Tet holiday but many people still choose it. Photo: Viet Phuong

Ms. Lan - owner of a slaughterhouse said: To avoid waiting, since the 25th of Tet, many families have come to prepare chickens for use during Tet. From the 28th of Tet until now, every day they prepare hundreds of chickens, especially yesterday they prepared more than 400 chickens, mainly for offerings.

Chickens are numbered to avoid confusion. Photo: Viet Phuong

Because there are so many people coming to hire slaughterhouses, many places have to give out numbers and mark chickens to avoid confusion. On normal days, the slaughter price for a chicken is 10,000 VND, for a duck is 15,000 VND, but on Tet it doubles to 20,000 VND/chicken, 30,000 VND/duck; chickens for offerings cost 25,000-30,000 VND/chicken due to higher technical requirements.

The process of cutting the chicken open and pulling the wings... also requires skillful and meticulous hands. Photo: Hai Vuong

The offering chicken is beautifully "shaped". Photo: Viet Phuong

This morning, many places refused to take in chickens because they were overloaded. Ms. Nga at Quan Lau market said she had hired 7 people to do the job but couldn’t keep up so she temporarily stopped taking on more.

"On this occasion, slaughterhouses can earn millions of dong every day. It's a bit hard work, but we have money to spend during Tet, so we all try our best to take on jobs. We have a day off in the afternoon to prepare New Year's Eve offerings, so we only work until the morning of the 30th," Ms. Nga added.

Compared to normal days, the price of slaughtering a chicken is only 10,000 VND, but now it is 30,000 VND/chicken, but many places are still overloaded and do not accept the job. Photo: Hai Vuong