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According to agriculture diary, poultry refers to a wide range of birds of various species and it applies to them generally alive or dressed that is killed and prepared for sales. It involves chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, pigeons, peacock, peafowl, ostriches, quails and even other game birds. Most of them may be classified based on the basis of utility, economic value or purpose and this may include meat type, Egg type, dual purpose, game, ornamental etc.
Therefore poultry farming is the process of nurturing domesticated birds such as chicken, ducks, geese and turkeys for the purpose of cultivating meat or eggs for food and other purposes.
Requirements for starting poultry farming
In order to begin poultry farming, there are some certain factors to be considered and these are;
Selection of poultry specialization
The poultry industry is a broad specialization, there are many sub-sectors in the poultry industry in which one could go fully into. When poultry farming is mentioned, most people do misconstrue the meaning, some might just think its chicken rearing or turkey rearing or even geese rearing alone, but poultry farming is a very wide agro business with different sectors. Below are some of the sectors in the poultry business;
Chicken breeding
Meat production
Poultry feed production
Poultry market and consultancy
Egg production
From the sectors of the poultry farming we have above, we can now see that poultry farming is very wide and so an area of specialization has to be chosen.
Selection of bird
This is also an important factor. Several types of bird can be reared and these are
Domestic fowl
Turkey
Geese
Duck
Peacock
Guinea fowl
There should be an apt decision as to the rearing of chickens which are mainly divided into two the broilers and the layers.
The broilers are the ones being nurtured for meat production while the layers are the one being nurtured for both egg and meat production.
Start-up capital investment
Poultry farming business is capital intensive one, and it depends on the scale, location of farm and type of management technology used.
A small scale poultry may require a capital of $500 - $1,500 according to poultryfarmingNigeria.wordpress.com
A medium scale poultry may require a capital of $2000 - $5000 while a large scale poultry may require $10000 and above.
Citing of poultry farm
A good location and housing system is vital to the success of a poultry farm.
A poultry should be sited where there is a large availability of cheap land and closeness to areas with high population density.
Housing systems such as range, straw yard, battery cage and deep litter should also be considered.
Poultry farming equipment and feeding
Construction of house for the birds, provision of feeders and drinkers, an adequate waste disposal system, source of water.
Feeding is a crucial aspect because according to poultryfarmingNigeriawordpress.com, 70% of expenses go into feeding and so feeding aspect must be well figured out before going into poultry business.
BENEFITS OF POULTRY FARMING
It requires less investment compared to rearing other livestock
It gives rapid return on investment that is production can be increased within a short period of time
It is a continuous source of income, it is not seasonal and can produce income for the entire year
Poultry droppings that is wastes are nitrogenous and considered good for fertilizers
Feathers in poultry are used for making pillows, fancy articles and curios.
It offers good full time or part time employment opportunity to farmers.
CONCLUSION
There is usually a large impressive return on investments in poultry farming by concealing this analysis based on large scale poultry farming below.
According to wealthresult.com, average healthy layers lays egg almost every day or at least four times in a week, some breeds of layers can lay as much as 325 eggs in a year and take 21 days to hatch which means that a layer can reproduce another fowl twice in three days.
So if one has 1000 healthy layers of good breed, they are capable of reproducing 24000 chicks in 40 days.
Also within the 21 days, the egg is hatched and within 28 weeks, they are ready for the market which means a farmer can start making his or her money in 34 weeks after setting up his poultry farms.
A fully grown healthy chicken sells between #4000 - #5000 in Nigeria and so if 24000 chickens is produced in ones poultry farm, one would be making either #96 million or #120million by the time ,the chicken are completely sold.
Apart from the chicken, egg production too is another money of its own. A crate of eggs in Nigeria sells for #500-#550 for smaller eggs and for #600-#650 for bigger ones. Each crate contains up to 30 eggs.
Therefore if one has like 500 layers that produces 12000 pullet in a month and decides to sell all, one will be making #200000 - #260000 monthly.
From the analysis so far we can see that poultry farming especially in Nigeria is mouthwatering and there is rapid turnover time and so it is a very good business if maintained well.
And so if one invests like #10million since it is a large scale business, according to the analysis, one can make #96-#120 million or more in 34 weeks if production is steady and farm business is technically stable.
Thanks for learning.