Chicken farmers in southwest China's Sichuan Province are getting out of a dilemma caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The poultry industry is the major source of income for residents in Zhaohua district in the city of Guangyuan. Now some 18,000 families are raising more than three million chickens in the district. Due to the epidemic, the live poultry markets across the country are closed, leaving a large number of chickens unsalable.

To address the problem, the district government and local poultry husbandry cooperatives have turned to online platforms for sales.

"Thanks to the promotion on the websites and WeChat (a kind of social networking tool widely used in China), our daily orders have exceeded 500," said Wang Yijun, sales manager of a local poultry husbandry cooperative.

Two small slaughterhouses have been established for online orders. The chickens are sent to different parts of the country via express delivery services after being carefully packed, frozen and quarantined.

As a way of further relieving the farmers' burden, the district government also subsidizes them with two yuan (0.28 U.S. dollars) by selling one chicken.

"I have sold some 4,000 chickens thanks to the help of the local government. With this beneficial policy to subsidize us, we will not lose money," said Wang Gongqin, a local farmer.

About 50,000 chickens have been sold in recent weeks. Now the local agricultural department is still seeking other means to minimize losses for the farmers, such as extending the time period to raise the chickens while trying to find bigger markets.

Meanwhile, the government has set up a special insurance for the farmers and taken measures to guard against the bird flu.

As the epidemic continues, the farmers nationwide have suffered losses to different degrees as a large number of markets are temporarily closed and the traffic in many rural areas is suspended. As for the poultry husbandry sector, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said Tuesday that it would step up efforts to resume the normal production and business in the industry and ensure effective market supply.

(Sichuan Radio and TV Station contributed to this report.)