There are plenty of opportunities in Kenya for generating a steady and sustainable income. One of them is investing in poultry farming in Kenya. Some might be a bit intimated by this business but the truth is that getting started with poultry farming is much easier than you would imagine.
Poultry farming in Kenya is worth billions of shillings and the industry continues to grow steadily. Tens of millions of chickens are slaughtered every year with more Kenyans embracing poultry meat over red meat from cows for example. Another thing is that Kenyans are embracing the free range or kienyeji variety of poultry due to the bad reputation of some of the commercial exotic breeds where farmers are always tempted to inject the chicks with growth hormones for faster growth.
This high and increasingly growing demand is part of the main reasons why there are so many opportunities when it comes to poultry farming in Kenya. The poultry farming in Kenya is not just for the large commercial producers. Whether you are a small or medium scale producer, it is still possible for you to get a piece of pie when it comes to the poultry industry which will help you in earning a sustainable income source over several years. Kenyan’s appetite for chicken is now at an all-time high. The population and economy are growing really fast and millions of Kenyans have been lifted into the middle-class income bracket.
From a glance, the poultry industry seems like one that is dominated by the big players in Kenya but the truth is that the tens or hundreds of thousands keeping 10-1000 chickens command a significant portion of this market. This means that the small and medium scale producers of poultry in Kenya currently have a market that is worth billions of shillings a year.
How to Get Going
If you have small capital to start with, it is important for you to figure out the segments of the poultry industry where you want to specialize in. This will impact how you will set up your poultry business and generate cash from your business. For example, you can start a hatchery and begin hatching and selling those chicks which are in high demand and sell to both small scale and large producers who have built the infrastructure for keeping the chicks. Hatching the chicks means that you are involved in the first phase of poultry farming in Kenya and the demand for your services will be quite high.
The second option through which you can join the industry is by buying desired day old chicks from a reliable supplier, growing and then selling them for meat or selling the eggs in order to generate the revenues. There are some poultry investors who are involved in the entire process of poultry production including the hatching, growing, making feeds, selling farm equipment and inputs, slaughtering, selling and marketing of the poultry products.
Poultry Farming in Kenya Delivers Quick Returns
Poultry farming in Kenya is not one of those investments where you will wait for years before you start reaping your returns. Within only a few months, you will already be selling your poultry products to the marketplace. Combine that with the fact that you do not need a large capital outlay to get started on the investment and you have a winner which will generate great profits for you within a very short time.
You can begin with capital of as little as Ksh.20,000 and within five months, you will have doubled on that to Ksh.40,000 or more. By constantly introducing new chicks every month, you can have an ongoing poultry production business that will keep your cash flow throughout the year. The situation is even better if you invest in a poultry incubator in which case you can have chicks hatching every week and keep your cash flow rolling on a weekly basis. There is no other business in Kenya that provides such a quick turnaround like the poultry farming business in Kenya.
If you are planning to produce the day old chicks, then you must first invest in the incubators that you will use in order to start your hatchery. Selling your day old chicks for Ksh.100 each will be one of the fastest ways of generating income. Through clever placement of eggs inside the incubators that have been innovatively built to support multiple hatching cycles, it will be possible for you to hatch chicks on a weekly basis.
With a very good hatch rate which you can get through expertise and good incubators, you will also have very good margins for your hatching business. With hatcheries, you will not foot the cost of feeding the chicks as you can generate orders before the chicks hatch so that you can easily deliver them to the market upon hatching. When the chicks are one day old, they will be off your hands and there is very little cost that you will foot afterwards apart from the cost of vaccination. This is one of the reasons why the well-run hatcheries are generally very profitable.
Growing the Chicks
This is the alternative way for making money when it comes to poultry farming in Kenya. Here, you can simple invest in your one day old chicks, whether they are KARI Improved Kienyeji Chicken, Kuroiler, Rainbow Roosters or Kenbro, grow them over several weeks and then resell them in the market. When growing your chicks, you have to take note of several factors such as the cost of feeding, cost of medicine, cost of housing and labor, as well as the cost of the various facilities which are required for successful Kienyeji farming. You should also have good sources of a suitable market for your hens once they mature up. We specialize in marketing chicks through our Kienyeji Marketing Network that you can sign up on for only Ksh.500.
Profitable poultry farming in Kenya is no longer the preserve of the large companies or the more experienced poultry farmers. With a little investment and a little initiative, anyone can start running a very successful and profitable poultry farm in Kenya.
Try to invest in knowledge when it comes to poultry farming in Kenya. We have some of the most informative poultry farming manuals focusing on Kienyeji chicken farming that you can purchase so that you can embark on the path to successful kienyeji farming.