Staying Afloat in Poultry Business amid Economic Challenges (II) 

Omolabake  Fasogbon

For successful meat production, the Managing Director of Nyore B Farm Enterprise, Mrs. Blessing Olugbemi, emphasised the need to get it right from the beginning.

“Your broilers must be nurtured like a new born baby for the first three weeks of their lives,” she maintained. 

To her, one must be able to pay the price of staying awake midnight during this period. 

“The operator must be ready to feed broilers round the clock for 24 hours in their first three weeks. Hence, provision must be made to light up the pen (an enclosed safe place for chicks) to enable night feeding.

“Solar technology has made lighting of the pen easy. But in the absence of solar or public electricity, you may resort to the local lamp,” she suggested.

Of importance, the farmer advised a new -comer who is starting on a small scale to kick off with a carton of bird. A carton comprises 50 birds. 

Her reason, “This quantity will be lot easier to manage and control with or without a staff. More importantly, you can be able to track your spending and profitability, then have an idea of expected profits as business expands.” 

As a starter too, Olugbemi feels hiring a professional at this level would be needless, except if a person is starting on a large scale. 

According to her, doing so would affect earnings as the operator would have to pay for such service.

Olugbemi hinted further that like other businesses, misdemeanor is not uncommon among poultry workers, stressing that a ground knowledge of the business would weaken shady steps and make loss be at minimal.

“However, if you are hiring a professional, it is a must that you sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the person to be engaged to decide on what comes to you at the end of the month. This is important so you don’t run at a loss over flimsy excuses and carelessness of who is engaged.

“From experience, some will lie to you, some are even so heartless that they go as far as feeding other people’s birds with your feed. 

“If it’s important you hire a professional, let it be known to the person from the onset that remuneration will be on commission basis. This will guard against any intended sharp practices,” she said. 

The Lagos State Polytechnic graduate affirmed that an operator can make as high as N100, 000 on a carton of bird, depending on how well he knows or plays the game.

Experimenting with 50 chicks, she sketched out likely expenditure to grow them as well as profit that may result, using prevailing operating cost as at the time of interview. 

She said, “On 50 birds, you are likely to use seven bags of feed but it is advisable to get 10 bags which altogether will not cost less than N150, 000. If you have a good breed, a broiler will grow to maturity within six weeks.

“If you are fortunate to have a buyer on ground, then you stop feeding, if not, you will continue to feed until a buyer comes. This is when the extra three bags become useful.” 

Furthermore, she spoke on the consumption of feed by broilers and their growth stages, noting that there are starters and finishers.

Continuing with the calculation, she said, “While 50 birds or one carton of bird goes for N35,000, you won’t be needing more than N3,000 for their medication.

“On this, you may go for organic or synthetic medication. Usually, the medications are mixed with the feeds. Your total spending by now is N188,000, with a miscellaneous of say N5000, all totaling N193,000”.

She also stressed that one must be prepared to lose some birds in the process. 

“So you can give allowance for up to five birds. But you must be careful that you don’t lose more than two of the 50,” she added.

She further pointed out that when birds have grown of age, averagely on 2.8kg, they could be sold off either as dress weight (slaughtered chicken) or life weight (live chicken). 

She hinted that proceeds from dress weight are however more than life weight. 

“To calculate the profit on dress weight at an operating cost of N193,000 for say 45 birds (on an assumption that five died), a dress weight is calculated in Kilogram (KG).

“One KG of dress weight is sold at N2,500. Let’s assume you are selling a dress weight at a minimum of 2.5 KG. if one KG is N2,500, 2.5kg will be sold for N6,250. Now multiply N6,250 by 45 chickens which is N281, 250. Deduct N193,000 from N281, 250, this gives you a profit margin of N88, 250. Note that your earnings may be more than this depending on the bags of feed consumed.”

She pointed out that the yield on the same quantity of birds would have been between N30,000 to N35, 000 if sold at life weight. 

Noting that poultry farming for meat production is a business of quantity, she said wealth from it would be based on the number of birds reared. 

Although, Olugbemi does up to 150 to 200 birds monthly, she said it is possible to rear up to 1000 birds in a month depending on one’s capacity. 

 On finding market for product as a start-up, she insisted that belonging to an association cannot be ruled out, including harnessing social media and words of mouth to acquaintances. 

Dwelling on safety, she stated that bio security of farm cannot be compromised to prevent birds from contracting infections. 

“It is better you are proactive enough to prevent your birds from infections than treating them, of which they don’t heal easily. Getting to treat them is costlier and you may even lose half of your birds,” she warned. 

Olugbemi, cautioned against granting access to visitors in the pen, stressing that visitors who must go in must be first disinfected as well as their footwear. 

“As much as possible, avoid rodent in your pen, rodent are easiest carrier of infections. In securing the pen from rodent however, keep rat poison away. Get cats instead”, she maintained. 

As a cardinal rule of the game, she said an operator must be neat such that the pen does not emit odour that could pollute the environment and likely attract sanctions from state parties.  

Olugbemi, was quick to mention that poultry business may be run as a main or side hustle, depending on choice. 

“You are at liberty to pursue other deals along with poultry business in so far you are already a master in the game. You must however be available in the night because birds need more attention this time.”