Old Habits Die Hard: The Rebirth of Farm Life
Time On My Hands...
I never had a formal training in animal husbandry or poultry for that matter but I grew up in a household where domestication of animals was normal. We literally lived in a farm and space was not a problem. At a point we had over six dogs, up to two hundred laying birds, goats and sheep. So recently when I suddenly had time on my hands, I had poultry on my mind.
I have a 300 feet by 600 feet piece of land on the outskirts of town so I decided to try poultry keeping once more. It wasn't any thing fancy, just a small scale cottage farm.
We had to fell a couple of palm trees that were in the way. Then the next thing was water.
There was no public water supply system in the area, so we had to provide our own water supply. We could have started the building by having trucks deliver water to us in big tanks but that made no sense for two reasons. 1. The poultry itself would need water to function well. 2. The truck came with tank that was much bigger than our own tank therefore we would be paying for water we did not need. The solution was to sink a borehole on the property.
Once there was water, the building construction moved pretty fast. Working with the cement blocks and mortar was suitably cheap. The more expensive part was roofing.
Among the roofing materials, the most expensive were the roofing sheets, made of aluminium. I think I had to purchase eight bundles of those, each bundle containing twenty sheets at fifty-five thousand Naira each bundle. That's about $180 dollars each bundle, amounting to just over $1400.
The wood cost about a quarter of the cost of roofing sheet.
The floor was made with light gravel, sand and cement. It was not a thick slab and can't carry much weight.
That took about 50 bags of portland cement. We didn't need a very fine finish.
The work took about a month to conclude but apart from the poultry pen, we needed at least two rooms for storage and to accommodate the poultry attendant while he is at work.
Our first set of birds came in. They were broilers and we used a deep litter system. After a few sets, we felt we were ready to try laying birds and we brought in battery cages.
We are still learning. But everything seems to be working out for now. If there are expert opinions, I would be delighted to hear it.
Thanks for stopping by.
Pictures were taken either with my Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 or Gionee M3 Mini
Your boy Kels
@churchboy
old is gold friend..........
Great thing to see youths into agriculture. Keep up the food work. God
bless your hustle
Thanks a lot. It is easier when you love it.
This is an amazing what people could achieve of they put their mind to it. Many graduates shy away from farming as a "dirty" business and everyone wants a white collar job. But they forget that the entrepreneurship is the best way to drive the economy. I understand the quest for white collar job, it is easier and you do not really need loan or startup loan capital (which is as hard as selling ice to an Eskimo to obtain in Nigeria). This is awesome. Resteeming this ASAP.
Thanks a lot. It is easier when you really love the process or when you're out of options. Thanks for the resteem.
You are most welcome.
Yes this have always been my ideology when it comes to agriculture. Starting low and expanding will come. We don't need to have a large amount of money to run agriculture. Nice one, boss.
Thanks a real lot. I think same goes for any venture that would succeed. Prime movers need to make all the mistakes when small so that the cost of mistakes would be relatively low. That way when the venture is big, all mistakes have been made and corrective actions taken. This is not necessary though if the venture is big enough to hire experts from the very beginning. Thanks for stopping by.
Wow! Fast work to finish the building in just a month. How many chickens will the barn accommodate? How many eggs can you expect in a single day? Do you have a strick diet of chicken feed or do you give them vegetables also?
Thanks a lot. The space can contain up to 3000 birds. I use only milled feed. I haven't tried vegetables yet. I don't have many layers so I get about 290 eggs daily from them. The rest of the space we use for raising broilers.
That is stil a lot of eggs per day. The whole operation looks very efficient. Where do you sell both chickens and eggs?
Majority of our sales are made at the farm. Resellers and households come to buy. Sometimes when I'm available I can carry processed chicken in my car to supply commercial users.
That's great that you are reaching your market directly from the supply. No middle men. Thanks for answering my question.
Thanks for your interest. Initially, middle men was a problem. They wanted everything but were willing to offer nothing. With residences springing up around the area, that problem is going away little by little. The idea of building the place was to serve the nearby community so they can get the products at rates that would encourage them to realise that those are basic daily needs. The middle men defeat that purpose by buying cheap and selling costly, making the cost of poultry products unreachable and unaffordable for the majority of poor households who really need them.
You're probably not familiar with food problems in this part of the world. This is not to suggest that majority of people go hungry, rather it is to say that there is a major lack of protein in our foods because protein is expensive and above the earning of most of the populace. Therefore most people depend on carbohydrate and some plant protein to shore up their nutrition. Of course this is not good for growing children and as a result, mild level of kwashiokor still exist.
I appreciate your questions. Many thanks and have a great day.
Most informative. You are right, somewhat familiar with those that take advantage of the poor making food unaffordable to the masses. Since you are genuinely concerned about the people have you been harassed for your efforts? Are other villagers beginning to be involved in production?
Thank you for replying. No I have not been harassed. The problem doesn't seem planned and systematic. It just is how it is. Most people don't take notice exactly what's going on. The villagers around the farm have their crop farm. For reasons unknown to me, they seldom venture into animal husbandry.