Everyone not only hopes to be part of a success story but also wants to be the one succeeding. That being the case, we have people taking part in various businesses. The aim is to achieve financial goals.
I took the time to write some of the success stories about poultry farming. This is after writing the previous article on how to start a poultry farm. I decided to compile some of the farming successes stories. This is because I want to motivate my reader. You can check on the previous post here
So now, let us go through these stories of poultry farmers in Kenya. I hope that you’ll get valuable lessons. So let’s get into it.
A 29 year old lady from Siaya.
In our first story we meet a 29 year old lady from Siaya county. This young lady does poultry farming as a part time job.
She rears Kuroiler and Indigenous chicken which earns her sh.150,000 net income on her 8 acre farm.
Sellah Awino Migaya is an Information Technology expert by profession and works in a bank where she earns about Sh.55, 000 a month. However, she has had a passion for farming since childhood. And this passion kept her busy during the weekends and holidays during her school days. Migaya, to date, loves farming and seeing her chicken increasing in number every other day gives her hope and happiness.
With little capital of Shs. 15, 000 she bought 150 one year old kuroiler chicks from a supplier from Thika in 2016. As they continued to multiply she decided to put up a poultry house for them which cost Shs.70,000. Migaya’s poultry farm is named Nyabungu Poultry FARM. Which means that it is located in the very rural setting in Usire along Bondo-Usenge highway near Maranda High School.
With sales from previous seasons,the farm is currently housing between 470 and 500 chicken. She is therefore restocking to meet the high demand. Migaya supplies 14 mature chicken of above three months old to two schools in the area every week. One such mature chicken goes for Sh700 earning her Sh9, 800 per week just from the two schools.
The lady also supplies first-starter farmers with chicks
, who order between 250-300 chicks. This makes her commit to a month supply of 2000 chicks. She sells a day old chick at Sh100, a week old chick at Sh130, two weeks Sh150, three weeks Sh200, a month old chick at Sh250, three months Sh450 and above three months at Sh600 -800. To cope with the high demand, Migaya has an incubator with a capacity of 1026 eggs that helps her hatch more chicks for the market.
Leamose Poultry Farm
In Kabiruini village, near Nyeri show ground and Dedan Kimathi University of Science and Technology, is a poultry farm. The farm belongs to Leah Muthoni who crossbreeds indigenous chicken with the exotic ones. That farm’s name is Leamose Poultry Farm. Leah crossbreeds chicken because they are resistant to diseases, mature faster and have improved productivity than the local kienyeji chicken.
The farmer keeps over 200 indigenous mature chicken. This is after selling around 500 of them during the holidays.
Leah went into poultry farming in 2013 with 6 kienyeji chicks. Her husband a formerly employed police officer went to obtain a loan of sh.400,000 from a bank. Talk about couple goals. Leah used this amount to buy a hatchery, brooders, a water tank and water traps. She also installed electricity and constructed cages. Remember, you can’t get yourself such information, you need to enroll in a training program.
It is here that she was introduced to the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization improved kienyeji chicken. Now referred to Kari Kienyeji after the institution’s former name. She went on and bought a number of indigenous breeds putting them all in separate cages. Leah started cross-breeding the local Kienyeji chicken with the cocks from the Kuroiler, Dorep and Kenbro chicken breed which are known to gain weight faster than the local Kienyeji. The improved chicken can weight up to 4.5kg when mature.
Health of poultry
To keep them healthy, Leah feeds the birds with kitchen waste, sunflowers, cereals, fish meal, green grass and maize germ. Also keeping her chicken in a large fully fenced compound where they can scavenge and get insects. Remember, keeping indigenous chicken thrives in a rural areas where people prefer them over exotic ones. Ensuring a strict vaccination schedule prevents loss of poultry.
Chicks can also be sold as three-week old chicks in which they go for Sh150 each. You can rear the other chicks until three months before you allow them to mix with other chicken. The matured ones are sold in terms of kilos with each going for Sh450. She is able to raise a net of between Sh80,000 to Sh120,000 monthly from selling the crossbred chickens, the original breed chicks and eggs.
In conclusion,
From the above successes you can note that it takes patience and believing you can make a kill out if it. Make sure you get the right guidance from professionals on how to keep the poultry and the breed that best fits your environment.
Away from that, what could be holding you from starting that business? I want to encourage you to get some great tips from this blog about personal finance. It rangers from budgeting, saving to investing. Get a clue from How to make money online and get paid via MPESA.