Backyard Farming: I am proud to rear chicken behind my house - Isabirye

Jun 18, 2012

Fred Isabirye started poultry farming in 2007 with 200 layers chicks as part of his backyard activities. He uses a small room he constructed behind his house for his venture

By Esther Namirimu

Fred Isabirye started poultry farming in 2007 with 200 layers chicks as part of his backyard activities. He uses a small room he constructed behind his house for his venture. 

“After receiving advice, I managed to raise 180 chicks. Unfortunately, they fell sick when they started laying eggs and I lost 15,” Isabirye recalls.

He says during the first weeks of laying, they were producing five trays of eggs. But when they made six months, they fell sick again because of the change in weather and the egg production reduced to two trays a day.

Isabirye realised that he was making losses, so he sold them off.

He did more research about poultry farming before buying his next batch of 200 layers. This time he managed to raise them all. He only lost five chickens when they had started laying.

Isabirye also ventured into rearing broilers because they grow fast and give returns faster compared to layers. He started with 200 broilers.

 

Revenue in-flow

“I get five trays of eggs daily,” he says. This adds up to 150 trays a month. At sh6,000 a tray, Isabirye on average, he gets sh10m a year from eggs alone. 

He also earns sh1.8m every two months from selling broilers. He always sells off-layers during festive seasons like Christmas, Eid and Easter.

To reduce transportations costs, Isabirye says he collects 50 trays before taking them to Jinja, where there is ready market.

Expense on feeds
Isabirye says buying mixed/ready feeds is costly. He, therefore, buys ingredients, which include fish, bones, shells, premix, sunflower, salt and maize and mixes them himself. Isabirye notes that this enables him to get good quality feeds.

He says it costs a farmer sh85,000 to buy a 70kg bag of starter feeds, yet the same amount can buy ingredients weighing about 159kg if one intends to mix the feeds himself.

Challenges
The feeds are still expensive even though he mixes them himself. 

He says he spends about sh140,000 every three days on feeds. 

Isabirye notes that the brooding stage is labour-intensive. 

“You have to immunise the chicks, supplement their feeds with vitamins and deworm them. It is a costly and tiresome process,” says Isabirye.

He notes that poultry farming is challenge for a village farmer since he has to buy charcoal to heat the brooder and paraffin to fuel the lanterns due to lack of electricity. 

            

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