Poultry farming in Nigeria has been a very lucrative business that many of our country people have ventured into; many of the people I know who have ventured into poultry farming are really doing well for themselves and their families. First, let us know what is poultry farming in Nigeria and how best we can utilize this definition to our own advantage.
Definition Of Poultry Farming in Nigeria
According to Wikipedia definition: Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese to produce meat, goats, cows, or eggs for food. It has originated from the agricultural era. Poultry – mostly chickens, are farmed in great numbers.
As Christmas is fast approaching and as the holiday is approaching also, many families will love to celebrate it with their loved ones, and the way they will do it is buy buying lives stock like foul, goat or cow depending on how rich the people are. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.
Knowing these things will help shape our thought and consideration about poultry farming. I have always thought of starting a poultry farm for myself and growing it to the fullest due to my knowledge in poultry.
Why You Should Start Poultry Farming In Nigeria
In Nigeria, as a case study, over 200 million people live in this part of the world. In those 2 million people, about 190 million people are consumers of lives stock, and only 10 million are suppliers or vegetarians. Having this in mind, you will agree with me that you have a better chance of selling your livestock to the consumers scattered all around the country and making a heavy amount of money.
From the analysis, Nigeria produces the largest eggs in Africa, followed by South Africa, and Nigeria imports the most livestock in Africa, followed by South Africa. In 2003, day-old chicken importation was a ban in Nigeria, making way for the domestic breed of agric chicken, which paved the way for more industry and creativeness. Now Nigerians incubate their eggs themselves and produce everything locally here.
Chickens, turkeys, geese, and ducks, poultry has become the most frequent one as farmers receive a fantastic number of chickens frequently either the egg for meals or the farming beef. The large consumption of this end product, poultry and egg are in continuous need from the market and even at different houses in Nigeria. This makes chicken farming quite rewarding as it appears to be a powerful source of animal protein out fish, steak, and pork.
Read Also: How To Find a Job and Work In Canada
Cost Of Starting Poultry Farming In Nigeria
To start poultry farming in Nigeria, you will need some capital and some reserver funds to attend to emergency needs when it arises. Starting small requires you to have a piece of land already where you may have prepared to start your poultry farm; you must have the sum N70,000 at hand to get all the things you needed to start small. This N70,000 will be enough in buying the day-old chicks and their feeding, which after 6 months you should get 100% returns on your investment.
If you want to start in the large scare, acquire your land, which may cost you close to N1.5 Million naira you will also need N500,000 on stand by to buying yourself a day-old chick and feeding them.
How To Start Poultry Farming In Nigeria
If you are thinking of starting poultry farming in Nigeria, then this is for you; here, I will list out the ways and steps you can start your poultry farming in other to make the best out of it and remember that in Poetry farm, you will need to apply hard work to get the best output of it to make it big and outstand those there before you.
Ts of duck rearing, rearing poultry, quails, turkey, emu, broiler, etc. On the other hand, the principles and inherent principles would be the same. Below are the five necessary actions you want to follow to initiate a booming snail farming business in Nigeria.
Step 1: Decide The Kind Of Poetry Farming In Nigeria You Want To Start
Here is where you make the first choice that will elevate you or bring you down in the coming years; you have to decide what you want to do and how you will do that. Making your choice on what kind of poultry breeds to specialize your farm on is the most important thing, poultry breeds that lay a lot of eggs you want to venture into will go a long way to help you achieve your goals.
Cockerels: Exactly enjoy the broilers, cockerels are additionally for meat production and possess a distinctive market requirement, but its development is quite slow, unlike the broilers that develop extremely fast. Cockerels can endure in several environments.
Layers: Hens utilized for commercial egg production then murdered. Layer chickens are increased from 1 day old. They begin laying eggs at age 18-19 months and continue until 72-78 weeks old. They develop a hatch of 40 grams to a weight of about 1.5 to 2 kg over 6 months.
Broilers: This is a kind of young male and female chicken that is raised for a meet when the grow the can weigh up to 30 to 50 G which if you approximate will be 1.6 KG and this can be achieved within 6 months of hatching
Step 2: Choose The Best Spot/Location/Site For You Poultry Farming
Choosing the best spot, Location or Site is very important and will significantly assist in the progress of your poultry farming in Nigeria; if you do not have money to acquire a piece of land, you can manage what you have, it may be a small piece of empty land in your backyard, start with the little amount you have, then grow as time goes on.
If you have money but not enough for what you may want, it’s always better to use the amount you have and start small; you can acquire a small piece of land around in a less noisy environment and area that automobile does not often pass due to that fact that the toxic gas that comes with the automobile fume can kill your lives stock costing you lots of money and damages.
Step 3: Make A Suitable Housing For Your Poetry Live Stock
Next in the steps of getting a suitable environment for your BIRDS is providing adequate housing for your livestock. You should ensure that you provide a well-ventilated house for your BIRDS and raise the land level so that flooding disasters will not carry away poultry or kill your livestock.
Ensure that your poultry farm housing is spacious enough to allow the running around of your BIRDS to prevent them from getting sick.
Remember that you will be feeding them, so while making a plan for your poultry farm landmass, calculate the amount of livestock you would be getting so that the house will be very suitable for them.
Step 4: Feeding And Medications Of The Poultry Bird and Live Stock
Feeding your birds and livestock is very important, more important than starting it. Ensure adequate and the right feed is given to them; you should also be informed of the suitable feed and kind of food to give to each type of BIRDS you have on your poultry farm. Giving them the wrong feeds may stunt your livestock growth and make them look unhealthy for consumption.
Talking about medication, you should make sure that you provide the necessary medications for your BIRDs and lives stock to be healthy. As professionals have advised those into poultry farming in Nigeria to be putting their medications inside their drinking water and always follow the instructions that have been provided.
Another thing is giving them clean water to consume, dirty water will endanger their lives, so it’s always advisable to check the waters before giving it to them.
Step 5: Transporting Marketing and Sales of THE POULTRY Birds and Live Stock
Transporting, marketing, and the sales of your poultry birds are very important; after all, the reason you want to start poultry farming in Nigeria is due to the money involved, so that part shouldn’t be ignored in any way.
You can get a Keke nappe for transportation and supplies if you do not have a car already. You should contact those who sell these lives stuck so they will be aware that you produce them. You can choose to be selling by yourself in the marketplace also.
Step 6: Feed Production And Manufacturing
To economize things, you may opt to be producing and processing your feed for your bed. You can buy the machine and start processing your own feeds; doing this has proven to be cost-efficient and helps stabilize your poultry farming business.
Step 7: Electricity And Energy For Your Poultry Farm Live Stock
You should make sure that your livestock has adequate light bulbs in their house, what does the light bulb do? it helps in keeping the birds warm to avoid getting cold and falling sick.
Now in Nigeria, we do not have steady energy and power supply, so what is the best alternative? the best and very affordable alternative is not the generator because it makes lots of noise, you spend a lot on diesel to fuel the electric generator and the fumes can be very dangerous to the lives of your livestock. So the best option is Sollar Energy and Power, Sollar is very cost-efficient and is not noisy, unlike its counterpart electric generator.
I have made a post that will teach you everything you need to know about solar energy and how to get one for your self here.
Conclusion
Poultry farming in Nigeria is a perfect and big business, but as like other businesses, you will need to put work into it in order to make the most out of the poultry farming in Nigeria business.
It is also a way to help reduce the unemployment rate in Nigeria by employing one or two persons to assist you in doing your poultry work and improve your poultry farming work in Nigeria
Meanwhile many prefer hatching and selling a day old chicks to farmers which have been proven to be risk-free and cost-efficient, the choice remains yours on the way you want to carry out your own poultry farming system in Nigeria.