1.3 The business of poultry farming
There are many small farmers that are making money out of raising meat birds (broilers) in developing countries. They buy day-old chicks from chick breeders who may be far away and usually sell them live after 7-8 weeks. They also buy their feed in from the nearest feed mill. This may be a long way away and this will mean that feed is expensive. They will need to sell their broilers at a high price.
Because of long distances, and because of unreliable transport, sometimes some chicks arrive sick or dead. If there are enough producers, they can form a co-operative and may be able to establish a small poultry hatchery (see section 14). This will help to make chicken meat production sustainable. A depot can be set up to purchase and store large amounts of feed to sell to the poultry keepers at a cheaper price. Egg producers may also benefit from such an arrangement.
Producing eggs is more difficult than broilers. The day-old chicks are very expensive and you have to wait more than 18 weeks before the hen will lay an egg. They are not easy to rear as they must be grown slowly and according to a plan. They also need to have good housing and nest boxes so there is a higher initial capital cost than growing meat birds. There is usually a shortage of eggs in villages and they may have to be transported long distances to customers so there is often great opportunity to farm commercial hens starting with a few and then expanding. The customer can purchase a few eggs at a time so the financial outlay is less than buying a broiler chicken.
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There may be opportunity for commercial egg production by starting in a small way. We will talk about this later
When you finish this course, we plan to be able to help you with your chicks, their feed supply and the trainers will be able to give you advice. You will see during the course that there are different ways to keep laying hens and broiler chickens
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1.4 Background information
You will need to look at all aspects of commercial poultry production before you decide to become a poultry farmer
This means that you will have to seek out information in a survey
On the basis of this information you will make a business plan. This will tell you how much money you can expect to make (or lose) each year
A good business plan will allow you to go to the bank to borrow money to get your commercial poultry farm started
You will not start with a feasibility study now but towards the end of the course when you will know more about poultry and what farming poultry entails. But you should look at this from time to time throughout the course at the questions that need to be answered so that you can gather the necessary information.
End of Unit I
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UNIT II
2. POULTRY BREEDS
There are many different breeds of chickens. We will only mention here those that have commercial potential (meat and/or eggs).
Dual Purpose. These are used to produce both meat and eggs such as Rhode Island Reds or Plymouth Rock.
Today, for large – scale commercial production they do not produce enough eggs
nor do they grow fast enough for meat production
they eat too much feed
they are not very efficient in converting feed to eggs and meat
Dual purpose breeds may have a role to play where it is not possible to get better breeds or conditions are not ideal or feed is not of the best quality
Special Breeds. These have been selected for egg production
the White Leghorn was very popular for many years
it has a small body (1.5 kg) and lays many white eggs
the Black Australorp is another popular breed
it is very docile (quiet) and lays a tinted (light brown) egg
it is medium-heavy body weight (2.2 kg) and therefore eats quite a lot of feed
it is good for free-range (out doors) conditions as it is not flighty
