China's chicken scientists will introduce four new types of breeder chickens to the United States at an annual international poultry show next week, hoping that their high-tech fowl can get a claw hold in the overseas market.

According to the poultry show regulations, no live chickens will be brought to the fair, where negotiations and sales are struck. The Beijing Huadu Group, which has 24 years of experience on breeding chickens, will take life-size photos and other technical materials to the show.

The Huadu Beijing White A98 and three other breeds of chickens boast a feed-egg ratio of about two to one and an annual egg output of over 20 kilos, which means that the chickens "have reached the internationally advanced level," said Zhang Lichang, deputy general manager of the state-owned company, formerly part of the Beijing Animal Husbandry Bureau.

Zhang told Xinhua that the new breeds of chickens, which first left the lab in 1998, have attracted the attention of some foreign businessmen, who have shown an interest to buy the birds.

Jiafa, manager of the breeding farm of the group, said that China has a 6,000-plus year history in raising chickens, but that local chickens have failed to make a name for themselves abroad.

He said that before 1975, when the Huadu Group started breeding chickens, nearly all of China's breeder chickens were imported from the Netherlands, the United States and some other countries.

China's chicken population stands at more than 1.2 billion, with an annual egg output of 15.6 billion kilos, which is 42 percent of the world's total. (Xinhua)