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Kenya, Africa

KEN12b - Recada Chicken Project

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Report Date: October 31, 2024

Chicken Project Report 30 October 2024

Receive our greetings from Kenya, it has been sometime before communication. This was because we did not want to give half report of our chicken project. Yes, we did experience some challenges from the onset of implementation. However, in spite variation of cost of construction and start up challenges, we have been able to put up a structure that can house at least 100 birds. And we are happy to report to you that the house is complete. We bought our first batch of 50 birds, and the progress is impressive.

 

Recent Events

Start-up Challenges

Since it was our first time in this kind of chicken farming, the major challenge we experienced was on the part of construction of the house which was highly under quoted. This was caused by our lack of prior technical knowledge. Consequently, the major issues were:
1) The size of the house the constructor gave us was not adequate for the birds we wanted to keep and we felt it was good to do a complete house rather than making a very small house and looking to improve it later.
2) The materials were as much as double the price compared to the quotation we got at first. Additionally, the prices of material were higher than we had earlier anticipated, due to the abrupt introduction of more taxations by the government.
3) Finally, when we realized that the amount we had been quoted to use for the whole process was not adequate, it forced me to draw from the little amount of money we had in the farmer’s account to complete the house and purchase the improved chickens. 

Current Challenges

The major challenge we have as per now is the chicken feed. The consumption rate has gone very high at this stage of about three months. So far, the birds have consumed 140 kg in one month (2 sacks of 70kg) and 1kg is Ksh.120. We are projecting to start selling them in 3 or 4-months’ time.

We do appreciate our experience, and this was a time of learning more on keeping birds. This is going to help us so much with our next batch of birds. 

 

Grace Abanga
Project coordinator