Teacher delves into thriving poultry farming

Jackbed Njue at her poultry farm in Gachoka, Mbeere South, Embu County. [John Muchiri]

Mwalimu Jackbed Njue, a senior education official in Embu County, rears improved kienyenji (indigenous) chicken farming which are raking in tidy sum every month.

“I started this project two years ago and it has grown from a handful of chicks to thousands of mature birds,” she says.

Madam Njue started in January with 300 day-old chicks and through hard work and determination, the project grew in leaps and bounds and today she has 4,000 chicken at different stages of development, among them 600 layers.

She rakes in Sh30,000 every week from the sale of day-old chicks, eggs, mature chicken, manure and training fee for young farmers.

So how did she start?

To void pitfalls that many upcoming farmers face, before she forayed into poultry farming, Ms Njue researched intensely on chicken rearing.

“Many farmers venture into farming without key information and the project flops in less than six months. To avoid that scenario, I read widely on poultry keeping online and magazines like this and visited successful poultry farms. My focus was how to tend to chicks from day one to maturity, feeding, housing, vaccination, disease management and marketing matters,” the farmer points out.

To set the ball rolling, she bought the parent stock from a reputable supplier and began her project at her two acre parcel of land in Gachoka, Embu County.

Always research

“I sourced the KARI improved kienyenji chicks that made my initial stock from an established poultry farm. I looked at their history and records to ensure they are disease free. Before I brought the stock, I ensured everything was prepared; the brooder, source of heat- (charcoal jiko), proper feed, water and farm hand,” she says.

Initially, the area where her coops stands had huge thickets but she cleared it all and left only trees to protect the farm from the scorching sun.

Her meticulous preparation paid off because she lost just five chicks from the brood due to stampede. Apparently loss of lives in the parent stock is common in farms with lapses. Michael Nyaga, a trainer in poultry keeping says under good care, the loss of chicks is less than five percent of the stock.

He says lack of preparation leads to high mortality rates, in young birds.

To keep the birds warm, Njue used two bags of charcoal for the three weeks the chicks were in the brooder.

“You should set the jiko in a way that the smoke does not get to the birds,” she advises.

After a month, she brought a second batch of 600 day-old chicks and in the third month another 500 chicks.

In the fifth month, the first batch started laying and she bought an incubator with a capacity of 1,500 eggs that cost Sh120,000. Her chicken multiplied and today she has about 4,000 chicken at any time, which increases drastically when the eggs hatch.

Treated water baths

Her market is basically local hotels and supermarkets and individuals. From her current 600 layers, she puts 300 eggs into the incubator every three days so that she can hatch a similar number of chicks after every three days which she sells at Sh100 each.

If she rears them to one week, she sells at Sh130, the two-week old go for Sh160, while three weeks old are sold at Sh200. She sells a mature chicken weighing 2.5kgs and above from Sh1,000.

Going forward, she plans to improve the housing structure and install an automatic watering system to enhance hygiene and cut on cost of labour. With the watering system in place, the farm plans to increase the number of layers to 2,000 birds to meet the export market orders.

Given that she is fully employed and the work load at the farm is overwhelming, she has employed four workers, with one of them a trained livestock health assistant.

To keep diseases at bay, at the entrance to every coop is a small dip filled with disinfectant.

The number of visitors at any one time is controlled not to stress the chicken. As an extra precaution, for the chicks, they administer anti-stress drugs in water when many visitors come calling.

To secure a loyal customer base, Ms Njue offers free advice on vaccination, feeding, supplies and incubators to farmers buying fertilised eggs and day-old chicks from them.

“We also help the farmers to market their products. This way I get more customers and the old ones keep coming back,” she says.

To increase their income, the farm also makes makes poultry manure, which is sold at Sh300 per bag. She trains farmers at a cost of Sh5,000 per a group. Last month, she partnered with the Foundations College and Deaf Empowerment Society of Kenya, USAID and UNDP, to train 200 deaf people in entrepreneurship.

Every agribusiness has its fair share of challenges. For her, the major headache is the ever rising cost of poultry feed.

“A 70kg bag of feed that retailed at Sh2,600 few months ago is now selling at Sh3,600. That is a sharp rise and it can affect your margin significantly,” Njue points out.

“My appeal is to the Government to lower cost of poultry feed lowers to levels where even small scale farmers can make profit,” she says.

Meanwhile, to cope with these she supplements commercial feeds with kitchen left overs.

For farmers who are eyeing poultry success she says her secret is adherence to best practices in poultry rearing and ongoing research to perfect ones craft.

 Ms Njue is now eyeing the international market as an exporter of chicken meat, eggs and chicks.