Buy local fowl and breed them

Q: I have a plan to start a poultry project at my home. I am mainly interested in local breeds. Where should I buy good local breeds and at what age? How should I take care of them like feeding and treating them or protecting them against diseases? How should I multiply them and at how many months shall I sell them? A: Good idea. Unfortunately, there is no established place where you can buy local chicks for rearing. You simply have to buy fowls from other farmers and breed for yourself. If you buy pullets (young female fowl) aged three or four months you won't have to wait long before they start breeding. Since you appear to be interested in raising birds for meat, you need to select a breeding stock of fast-growing and well-sized pullets. Breed them with equally good or better cocks. Then they are likely to produce chicks of similar or better quality. Keep selecting the best birds and retain them for breeding then you can sell off the rest to be eaten. You may consider breeding the pullets with an exotic cock so that the offspring will be bigger and grow faster than local birds but be more resistant to diseases than the exotic birds. You have to protect the exotic cocks from being bullied by the local ones, which tend to be more aggressive. Any effort to improve the local breeds with exotic ones should be accompanied by an improvement in feeding, health care and general management. One cock is able to serve 10 - 15 hens. To control breeding, place 10 hens with one cock in a breeding pen or spacious cage. You can make such enclosures locally, using local materials. You can get hens to hatch the eggs naturally or use an artificial incubator. If you hatch the eggs naturally, the hens will brood the chicks. But if you use an artificial incubator, you will need artificial brooders to keep the chicks warm. The birds should mature for sale by three or four months depending on how you breed and rear them. From time to time you will need to get the advice of a veterinarian. Write to Farm Doctor, P. O. Box 9815, Kampala or email cwendo@newvsion.co.ug