Starting and gradually building up your improved indigenous poultry breeds (improved kienyeji) flock can be frustrating farmers, they think it takes a long time and requires a lot of resources, yet it only requires knowledge on what one needs to do and a little commitment. You can start your successful poultry business from as low as 10 hens and build it to a mega commercial enterprise with proper planning and focus.
Today, I discuss with you how to build your poultry flock without much hassle. Let us together do the simple breeding arithmetic and choose your level depending on your level of investment.
Tier 1: Very smallholder farmers
This is the very low farmer who can only afford to start with 10 hens and 1 cock. It is always advisable to have one cock for every 10 hens in a breeding farm. Assuming each of the 10 hens each produce 20 eggs in a month, the farmers will have 200 eggs in any given month and 600 eggs in a year. If the 10 hens each produce 12 chicks for 3 months in a year, the farmer will comfortable have 360 day old chicks in a year. The farmer can have the hens sitting on the eggs through a process of denying them the day old chicks and taking into a brooder and introducing to the hens a new batch of eggs to sit on. If 80% of all the chicks survive to market size, the smallholder farmer will have 288 birds by the end of the year. This farmer is already on the path to commercialization.
Tier 2: Graduate Farmers
This is a farmer who has moved from tier1 and is building his flock with 15 hens. Assuming the 15 hens each produce 20 eggs in a month, the farmer will have 300 eggs every month or 900 eggs in a year if an allowance is given for sitting on the eggs 21 days four times in a year. If 15 hens each produce 12 chicks 3 times in a year, the farmer builds his or her flock to 540 birds in the farm. Assuming 80% of the birds survive to market size, the farmer has 432 birds in the year in various stages of growth that can enable them sell chicken meat and eggs sustainably without any stop in supply or income. Farmers who excel in this category move to a super profitable and high scale tier which I will call a cadre of LEAD FARMERS.
Tier 3: Lead Farmers.
Lead farmers affect eternity. Apart from being very profitable, they are also a central point from which surrounding smallholder or upcoming farmers learn. Their farms are in effect demonstration farms where others come to learn. This is essentially a fully adopted farmer walking the path of commercialization of indigenous chicken production.
The lead farmer may want to begin with at least 30 hens each 3 cokcs. Each of the hens will be producing an average of 20 eggs per month which is 600 eggs. This translates to approximately 1,800 eggs a year if allowance is given for sitting on the eggs. If each of the 30 hens produce 12 chicks for 3 months in a year, the farmer has 1080 day old chicks. Assuming 80% survive to maturity, the farmer will have built his flock size to 864 birds.
Any farmer keeping more than 1,000 birds or more at any one time can then now be referred to as a poultry entrepreneur. It is advisable that farmers stagger their production to be able to sell consistently every month, throughout the year.
Grab our Chicken Farming Manual and Chicken Feed Formulation Manual through the links below.
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KIENYEJI RESOURCES:
Poultry Feed Formulation Manual http://www.kienyejichicken.com/feed_formulation.php
Comprehensive Kienyeji Chicken Rearing Guide http://www.kienyejichicken.com/
Kienyeji Housing Manual http://www.kienyejichicken.com/
Kienyeji Info: https://kienyeji.org
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Twitter: @KienyejiChicken