Poultry farming is one of the fastest growing businesses in Kenya. If you are planning to invest in poultry this year, here are 10 key areas to focus on to stay ahead of competition.
1.Stop buying cheap feed
Feed is the biggest component of the cost of any chicken production in Kenya, be it meat or egg production. It accounts for 70 per cent of all the other components. The major component of feed is maize and soya and those two are not cheap. Buy feed that will consistently give you the target kilo of meat per feed fed and the target amount of eggs per kilogram of feed at a lower cost and not at cheaper cost. The two are different.
2.Measure feed you give your flock daily
Some farmers give feed adlib to their birds. This must stop if you want to make profit. You must measure to a gram per bird of all the feed allocations daily as per the established standards of your breed. In some farms I have gone to, 10 per cent of the feed is wasted on the floor or the litter and go unaccounted for. Build a habit of calculating how much feed is being converted to kilogram of meat or eggs. As a rule of thumb, 1kg of layer feed should give you 5-6 eggs during production and 1.6-7 kg of broiler Crumble feed should give you 1kg of live weight, this is the feed conversion ratio.
3.Weigh a sample of your birds regularly
Make a habit of weighing 5 per cent of your birds from date of placement to week of slaughter or point of lay if they are pullets. This practice though laborious, will inform you when things are going wrong early in advance for you to make corrective actions.
4.Spend some time in the flock unit
Set aside some time to walk in your flock unit. The best times to visit the flock is very early in the morning during feeding time and late in the evening just before the lights go out. We refer this as ‘walking the birds’. It’s during this period when you physically appraise your flocks on feeding habits, watering, flock density and general health. It also reduces incidences of flip over or heart attack.
5.Invest on a footbath at every entrance to a poultry unit.
Footbaths are the best and first line of defence for your flocks in case of a disease outbreak. Ensure you always keep it clean and regularly replaced with potent disinfectant.
6.Restrict visitors into your farm
Biosecurity is all about processes or procedures that you must put in place to prevent introduction of disease – causing organisms or agents from infecting your precious flocks. Avoid unnecessary visitors into the precincts of your flocks, as history has it that people are the main conveyors of poultry disease agents.
7.Vaccinate your birds as per health plan
