Poultry Farming

Poultry meat and eggs are important sources of high quality proteins, minerals and vitamins to balance the human diet. Specially bred egg laying chicken are now available which have high growth rate and high feed conversion efficiency. Depending upon the farm size
, layer farming can be the main source of family income or source of subsidiary income and employment.

The advantage of poultry forming:

·         Initial investment is little lower than layer forming

·         Rearing period is 5-6 week only

·         More number of flocks can be taken in same shade

·         Broilers have high feed conversion efficiency i.e. the amount of feed required for unit body weight gain is lower comparison to other livestock

·         Faster returns from the investment

·         Demand for poultry meat is more compared to sheep and goat meat

·         Increasing supply of improved breeds with better disease control and improved eggs productivity

·         Benefit to local farmers as they would be trained by the developer on best practices

India had made considerable progress in broiler production in the last three decades. The broiler production has sky rocketed at an annual growth rate about 10% and stands as about 2.4 million metric tons of chicken meat. Today India is fifth largest producer of broiler meat in the world.

 How to Start a Chicken Farm Business:

Find your niche market and learn about their requirements:

The poultry industry is a broad niche. There are many sub-sectors in the poultry industry which you can tap into. When poultry farming is mentioned, a lot of people take that to mean chicken rearing or turkey rearing alone but poultry farming is a very wide business with different aspects. Egg production, Meat production, Chicken breeding, Poultry feed production, Poultry equipment manufacturing, Egg and meat processing, packaging and marketing, Poultry marketing and consultancy etc.

So, you see that poultry farming is very wide. Therefore, you have to choose your area of specialization. Of course, if you have enough capital and the technical know-how nothing stops you from doing all the businesses under poultry farming but it is always better to go back to the drawing board, find out which aspects of poultry farming are more profitable in your area in terms of demand and income and then select the most attractive aspects to concentrate on.

 Choose which sector you want to target – Layers or Broilers:

There are two types to choose from: broilers, which are chickens raised for meat, or layers--chickens raised for their eggs. However, there are also the other sectors of the industry that you can pursue. Eggs which are not to be put on the market for human consumption (these can be from both broilers and layers) are incubated and the chicks hatched and raised until they are at the right age to be sold to farms to be raised as layers or broilers. Often the business of incubating eggs and raising chicks is separate from that of raising the chickens themselves. There is also the part of slaughtering chickens for meat that is a separate sector in itself you may wish to pursue.

Create a business plan according to the sector you’re targeting:

Now this is time to draw up as part of your operation. It tells of what goals you wish to achieve and how you intend to get there. As far as beginning, the success of any business plan is within the quality of the information provided. Once you determine the type of business you want to go into the plan itself is to represent the operation on paper as if it already exists. How much revenue is expected, from where, the marketing plan that prompts the sales, the infrastructure needed to meet the needs of doing business as well as other related actions and costs. Take your time and talk to as many people as possible for information. Please keep in mind doing your homework up front is like taking on an insurance policy. It increases your chances of succeeding by eliminating the unknowns. In the end there are always other variables.

Make yourself known to potential customers and consumers:

 Advertise yourself by simply letting other people know you have eggs or meat you want to sell. Often selling by word-of-mouth is a lot cheaper and still the most popular means of advertising than paying for an advertisement in the local newspaper that may get read by only a few people. However, there is no harm in doing that either, nor is there any harm in setting up a website promoting your product.

 Start-up Capital Investment:

With location in mind, you now have clearer idea of the capital required of you. Write down your detailed capital and investment requirements and set to source it.

Like every other farming projects, the bigger you plan to start, the more investment required. You need to decide on the level of capital investment you are willing to commit into this business before starting.

Set up your building, and purchase equipments and machinery:

With your business plan is in place, the next is to proceed to setting up your farm without delay! At this point, it is my believe that you already have the money in your hands. So here are the things you need to acquire and put in place.

Buy land  Like we said earlier, look for land in a remote location but make sure it's not too far from the city.

 Build your Structure :

House is very important for chicken rearing and effective keeping and management. Poultry housing are classified according to the scale and the management system. The most common types of poultry housing used in Nigeria are:

•    Deep litter
•    Half litter and half slats -
•    Battery
•    Semi-fold

There is a very long list of equipment and facilities to put in place in order to fully manage a poultry farm. You would need to construct a house for the birds, provide feeders and drinkers, a good waste disposal system, source of water, lightening and heat, egg crates and storage space for keeping feed and eggs.

Therefore, you should make a list of all the items you would need, find out the prices and compare different prices to further give you an idea of the costs of setting up the poultry farm.The following equipment may be needed for your poultry farm and their uses:

·         Feeders

·         Drinkers

·         Perches

·         Nests

·         Crates

·         Lighting system

·         Waste disposal system

·         Incubator

·         Heaters or brooders

·         Egg tray

·         Cages and coops

Another factor to give consideration to is the marketing aspect of your poultry business. You have to find a way to reach your customers and this would be done by employing the right marketing techniques. Therefore, before you start a poultry business, you should really consider the marketing strategies which you would use to break into the market. The incubation period of the domestic fowl is 21 days. You can start selling off your birds as early as 8 – 12 weeks but full maturity is reached between 20 – 24 weeks. The payback period of a poultry farming business is between 3 – 5 years.