When a by the way thing turns into a Business!

A couple of months ago I decided to buy 15 chickens. I wasn’t even thinking about it as a business, but just to have chickens for keeping. I’m sure other people have also done that before. Just doing something for the sake of just doing it.

When starting I had very little knowledge about these birds. Little did I know I had purchased exotic and local birds.

I would feed them on scraps of food remains as well as number 3 meal. I only realized after some time that the chickens I had purchased do not sit on their eggs and I had a number of eggs that would get rotten due to this fact. Imagine having a number of chickens laying eggs and not having a single chick for over 4 months.

So I decided to purchase an incubator and changed my feeding program to village chicken feed and layer Mash.

I can testify the incubator has been a serious game changer and opened my eyes to incubation services being a lucrative business. The first time I loaded the incubator it was still empty and only put 35 eggs. The first chick hatched within 4 days of incubation due to the fact that the chicken was brooding before I placed it inside the incubator and I wasn’t even ready to keep chicks. So being prepared for anything is key.

Once I changed the feeding program to enhance egg laying. I saw that egg production increased.

The incubator is a 100 egg capacity and the hatching rate is about 80 to 85%. So the stock has greatly increased. From wondering how I will fill the incubator to wondering where I will put the collected eggs. It even has me wishing that I bought one with slightly bigger egg capacity. This journey has me learning so much.

With the new feeding program for my birds I collect about 9 to 12 eggs a day. By the end of the week I have 60 eggs ready for incubation.

After a week and a half I have 100+ eggs ready to incubate and this is only from the 9 to 13 eggs collected for one and a half week. This has shown me that the incubator of 100 egg capacity is already small. I’ve turned a by the way thing to have chickens into a business. We will soon have chicks and bigger birds for sale, we also have fertilized eggs.

This has taught me how to move steadily from small to medium scale in a space of 21 days. We are still hatching and growing.

Those interested in village chicken rearing and increasing your stocks without having to buy big birds or purchase day old birds all the time, I advise you to invest in an incubator. You will be amazed how far it will take you.

- Elizabeth Maanda Sianga

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