POULTRY KEEPING

When you hear of poultry, you will immediately think of the usual chicken reared by professional farmers. These will be birds like broilers (mainly reared for white meat) and layers (as the name goes, they are reared for eggs).

Several farmers across the country do a different kind of poultry which is more profitable to them. The sectors has less competition hence pushing the profit margins higher than those of layers and broiler.

These farmers are rearing Quails, Guinea fouls, Ostrich, Turkey, Ducks, and Goose. Some other poultry include Israeli Local Breed of chicken (see the picture below) imported into the country as eggs and hutched or as live birds.

An Israeli Local Breed of rooster

This kind of chicken is way bigger than the local Kenya chicken weighing and fetching more profits as well

Goose

Turkey

Others include Bantam Poultry. These are a smaller variety of poultry compared to the others. They include Bantam Ducks, Chicken, and Geese.

Bantam Chicken

These birds are most sort after as ornamental birds and come at a fortune well at KSh. 500-9500/= a mature bird (prices are per farmer)

These are some of the high profit poultry you can keep at your backyard or back at the country side to fetch some more income.

You may be wondering where to get the market for these kind of birds. The market as explained by one farmer at Ruiru is insatiable. Hotels and fellow farmers are after these kind of birds more than the usual layers and broilers that have heavily flooded the market all over the country. Fellow farmers will be after the birds for breeding. Breeding stock cost a little more than birds sold for meat.

And the challenges:

Birds like quails and bantams don’t hatch eggs. You have to use an incubator to hatch there eggs. They are poor mothers as well meaning you have to keep the chicks in a brooder to keep a low mortality. Other birds like turkey are very poor mothers. Turkey chicks are also very susceptible to diseases at their early stages which makes their survival rate very low if not well taken care of.

To rear the wild birds (such as Ostrich, Guinea fowl and Quail), you will have to apply for a permit from KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service), which is not a hustle to get nowadays as a Karen farmer explains.

CHICKEN

The process of rearing broilers can be a sensitive affair from the time you get them from the distributors/hatchery when they are 1day old chicks until they reach maturity.

For any kind of animal husbandry the work always starts prior to the animal even reaching the farm and for chicken it’s no different.

STEP 1: The Brooder

Before you go and get your chicks, you should first ensure that you have adequately prepared the brooder. A brooder is a farm structure specifically constructed for chicks with special attention to temperature control and proper hygiene.

Temperature control is important for day old chicks because they do not have the ‘mother hen’ to shelter them from the cold and they do not have feathers and instead have a fur like covering. Without a source of heat for the chicks the mortality rate goes up and one risks losing the entire lot.

Temperature control can be achieved through two main ways:

·         Use of jiko – this involves using the traditional charcoal burning jiko as a source of heat for the chicks

·         Use of mercury bulbs – which are special bulbs designed to produce heat. Please note that care should be taken when adjusting how low the mercury bulb should hang. If it’s too high then the chicks will hurdle together and the ones in the bottom will suffocate and die. If it’s too low some chicks may die of heat stroke. A good indicator of how low to hang the bulb is through observing how the chicks react to the heat, if they hurdle together, lower the bulb a bit lower but if some move away to far corners then raise the bulb because it’s too low. See a mearcury bulb on the image below:

Below are the chicks in the night with the light on:

STEP 2

Care should be taken when transporting day old chicks especially when using a car it is important to make sure the vehicle is well ventilated and that the chicks are not stacked up to the extent that some have no access to fresh air.

STEP 3

With day old chicks it is advisable to start them off immediately on anti-stress vitamins  to help them cope with the sudden change in environment. Common anti-stress vitamins in the market include: Aliseryl, Egocin and Agrar [if un-available agrovets can always advise you on a good substitute]

You can also mix the vitamin water with some glucose and glycerine. The glucose gives the chicks energy and keeps them active increasing the speed of their metabolism so that they can eat more and develop faster. The glycerine [in small portions] helps ‘smoothen’ the chicks’ intestines aiding them in excretion of their waste.

Below is a sample of vitamin water mix; you can as well mix other meds or vaccines in there.

STEP 4

For broilers, you have the starter meal and the finisher meal. The starter meal is a mash made up of finely ground maize, fish, millet and sorghum mixed together. This meal is specifically for day old chicks because it is easy on their delicate digestive systems and it is advisable to keep the chicks on this meal for at least the first 2wks.

After the first 2wks the chicks ought to have developed feathers and you can thus move them from the brooder to the main chicken house and can change the meal to finishers mash or pellets. The major difference between the finisher mash/pellets and the starter mash is that the finisher mash is not as finely ground as the starters mash which is understandable because at this time their digestive system is well developed and can handle the heavier feeds.

You can keep the broilers on the finishers meal [being fed 3times a day] for 4wks – 5wks before they reach maturity and can be sold.

STEP 5. VACCINES & VITAMINS

Below is a schedule of the vaccines needed to reduce mortality rate for broilers:

·         After  1wk – Newcastle vaccine

·         After 2wks – Infectious Bursal Disease (Gumboro) sientific names: [Bur 706, TAD, Hipra(IBD)]

·         After 3wks – Newcastle vaccine

·         After 4wks – Gumboro vaccine

The above vaccines are administered via the chicken’s drinking water. In order to ensure that they take the vaccine it is advisable to deny the chicken water for about 2hrs to make sure they are thirsty before giving them the vaccinated water.

OTHER USEFUL TIPS

·         Maintain a Monitoring & Evaluation worksheet – This will help comparing one lot to the next and help identify areas that need improvement. Have a look at what i use:

·         Have a well defined/regular feeding pattern – This will make sure the animals are not ‘stressed’ and weight progress is even

·         Make sure the chicken house floor is always dry – This will reduce chances of bacterial or viral infections.

·         Disinfect the brooder 1-2weeks before introducing the day old chicks. This is the same for the main poultry house; disinfect it 1-2 weeks before bringing in the chicks from the brooder.

·         Make sure the brooder/poultry house is well light during the day and night. This encourages the chicks/chicken to keep feeding and hence attain the required weight in time.

·         Ensure the structure is well aerated.

THE ONLY EQUIPMENTS ARE:

You will need:

1.       Feeding troughs. There are several options, choose the best for you.

2.       Drinkers: either plastic or metalic drinkers. Plastics are easy to clean and can last long

3.       Enough lighting during the night. You may prefer having electric power available.

4.       A brooder for the day old chicks. A brooder can be within the main poultry house by simply curving out a place for the chicks and removing the guides as the chicks attain 2wks. For a professional brooder it would need to off the ground and separated from the main house.

5. A jiko or heat-generating electric bulbs within the brooder to maintain enough heat within the brooder during the night or during cold day times.