Shortage pushed us to start poultry venture

In August 2016, Mr Jackson Mbato and his three brothers faced a hurdle while organising the memorial service of their mother in Timina Imali, Vihiga County. The guests were so many that they could not get enough chicken to feed them.

Things were so bad, they were forced to source for the birds from the neighbouring Nandi County at higher prices.

“We looked for any chicken seller around but we could not find enough to buy. We had to spread expand the search to the nearby counties and this was expensive,” Mbato recalls.

After the event, the siblings met as a family and decided to venture into poultry farming. That is how Chanderema Poultry Farm was started. To start off, Mbato, 60, who is the team leader says they bought 100 month-old chicks at Sh250 each and started rearing them from the family garage. Along the journey, 26 chicks died and they had no idea what caused the deaths.

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To avoid such deaths again, Mbato says they sought advice from the Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organisation (Kalro) – Kakamega officials and after a vet toured the farm, he came to the conclusion that the young birds died as a result of suffocation since the car garage lacked sufficient ventilation.

Modern poultry house

Luckily, the poultry experts from Kalro helped them to construct a modern poultry house and transferred the chicks to the new house. After two and half months, they sold off the stock to a hotel in Kisumu at Sh750 each. 

After that sale, they reinvested the income and bought more birds. Slowly, the birds started laying eggs.

But the challenge was that the market was flooded with cheap eggs from Uganda and selling eggs was unsustainable.

To get over that hurdle, Mbato says they bought another 100 chicks that were two and half months old and sold them off at four and a half months.

Bird by bird, the business slowly began to pick.

“With the increased demand for improved Kienyeji chicken meat, we expanded our poultry farm and stocked it with 2,400 birds at a cost of Sh600,000. We learnt that it was more economical to buy chicks that were above a month to reduce their mortality rate,” says Mbato.

Lucky for them, the birds were on high demand and the challenge was frequent restocking.

“We decided to sell all the birds at a flat rate of Sh750 for cocks and hens. We sold all the birds and made Sh1.8 million after two and half months. From then on, we started making solid profits,” says Mbato.

Mbato says they used part of the profits to buy 3,000 birds in 2018 and increased the number to 3,800 this year to capitalise on the Christmas and New Year festivities.

“Christmas and New Year season is when we make good money from the business. To avoid losing out, it is wise to have enough birds as people will be having weddings, get-together and birthday parties. We have enough stock to cater for the demand,” says Mbato.

They also keep 30 turkey, 50 ducks and 20 geese which provide security on the farm.

Creative names

With all these birds how do they manage?

Mbato says to make management easier, they have named the poultry houses as Senate (birds below three months), Parliament (birds ready for sell) and State House (house for turkeys, ducks, ostrich and geese).

Mbato says they sell a pair of turkey (male and female) for Sh5,000.

Mbato says after receiving numerous orders for chicks, they also ventured in the hatching business.

Challenges

On disease management, Mbato says when the chicks are day-old, they are vaccinated against Marex disease, gumboro at day 10 and against Newcastle Disease when they attain three weeks of age.

They re-administer Newcastle vaccine at day 28 and repeat it after 8 weeks and then fowl typhoid at week 18.

“In Vihiga County, Newcastle disease is prevalent and that’s why we are keen on vaccination. But we have been warned by the vet never to vaccinate sick birds.”

On feeding, he says between day one and day 7, the chicks are fed on starter mash for faster growth and then changed to chick mash until they attain 8 weeks which is then substituted with growers’ mash until they reach four and half months.

He admits that buying chicken feed is an expensive affair.

“The cost of buying feeds is what makes this business out of the reach of many interested parties. The cost of feed is very expensive making Kenyan poultry farmer to make losses unlike their Ugandan counterparts who have it easier because production costs are lower.”

In their area, he says a 50-kg of chick mash is sold at Sh3,000, growers mash at Sh2,450 and layers mash Sh2,700.

Though feed is expensive, he cautions farmers against giving their birds cooked ugali as it can choke them to death.