One of our success stories is 25 year old Ken Tuju. Ken developed his love for chicken as a primary school pupil when his maternal grandmother gifted him with a 3 month old hen during a visit. Back home he tendered the young hen to maturity ensuring it raised its own 12 chicks months later. He would months down the line make his first sales and first income from selling his cocks in the local market earning Kshs. 1,400 and planting the mustard seed that would grow his passion for chicken to the young entrepreneur he is today.
The budding chicken farmer kept his growing flock of chicken in a corner of their house in West Uyoma where the flock now numbered 18. Overtime he juggled between his education and keeping chicken on a very small scale, but he had become conspicuous in his village due to his passion.
After his forth form, Ken continued his college education and at the same time researched in the internet how he could commercialize his chicken production to earn him sustainable income and reach out to other farmers. In this effort he came across KIENYEJI PARTNERS who would walk him through the process of commercialization of chicken production that involved training on production, financial and market linkages.
Ken bought our manuals and we also facilitated on farm training on ideal housing design and construction, record keeping, chick management, breeding, market requirements among others. We then linked him to our team of business advisors who took him through business performance tracking and poultry business advice.
Ken realized that most farmers feared venturing into the poultry business because they didn’t brooding fearing the risk of mortality when chicken were between one day and one month old. We trained him in set up and management of a mother unit and he has since relocated to Kisumu to set up a big mother unit selling 2,000 Rainbow Rooster month old chicks to smallholder farmers thereby saving the risks and costs associated with brooding and placing them on the path to commercialization.
Our first market linkage for ken was with local farmer organizations and NGOs supporting farmers through economic empowerment. He has built on this to create a big market for his month old chicks across the Republic of Kenya.
You can order month old Rainbow Rooster chicks from Ken Tuju through his number +254718 223 408, or Email: tujuken@gmail.com, Twitter: @ktuju