Having been a farmer for 20 solid years, Grace Awuonda is a seasoned grower. From kales, to tomatoes, to watermelons and onions she has planted them all.

But in 2010, she decided she was tired of it all — the jembes, the pangas, the fertilisers, the seedlings, the soil, they were all tasteless. The tastier option? Chicken farming, she says.

“Growing crops and all was paying my bills, but it became so tiring, routine and boring, I wanted something refreshing with life. Crop farming also had its fair share of challenges like unpredictable rainfall patterns which affected production,” she tells Smart Harvest at her farm in Bungu-Koraga village of Kisumu County.

In 2010, the effects of unpredictable rainfall, long drought and flooding affected most farmers at Okana Swamp and Awuonda’s was one of them. Almost all her entire crop was affected.

“Previously we ploughed ten acres of horticultural crops, but with the unpredictable weather, we had to reduce until it reached one acre and we could not meet the market demand,” says Awuonda. That is when she said enough was enough with crops.

After going slow with horticulture farming, her expansive farm lay fallow for sometime. It was during this period that she decided to try poultry farming.

“I cannot abandon farming altogether but I needed something different for a change and poultry farming seemed like a good bet,” she says.

The 52-year-old mother of seven says for her, poultry farming was less demanding and profitable compared to horticultural farming.

To start off, Awuonda says she got 50 broilers from a nearby chicken seller and hit off the project.

“Within four months, the brood had increased and year by year the project started expanding,” says the farmer who now has more than 600 broilers in her farm. She discloses that now she gets a profit of Sh20, 000 every month.

The biggest headache for her is buying the chicken feed.

Awuonda feeds her poultry on a two 50 kilogram bag of poultry feeds weekly.

And to ensure the chicken are healthy and free of diseases, she engages the services of a veterinary doctor frequently.

“The vet comes on a weekly basis just to help me check on the behavior of the birds and if there is any vaccination to be administered. I am slowly mastering the art of chicken rearing and will soon be handling less serious care,” says Awuonda.

Awuonda also stocks one-day old and two-month-old broilers which she sells to aspiring chicken farmers.

Because the area is flooded with poultry farmers, she says sometimes the market is saturated with birds for sale which leads to low prices.

“In this area, it’s like everybody is keeping chicken because they know it pays and it is less labour-intensive. Problem is, sometimes the farmers flood the market and the birds end up fetching poor prices. To overcome this challenge, I have to get create and aggressive as I search for new and untapped markets. But I can’t complain,” she says confidently.

Awuonda has secured deals with small hotels and supermarkets which ensures she has a sustained market all seasons. But securing a market is not a walk in the park, she says.

“When I raised my first flock, it was difficult to secure a market as most hotels were skeptical about giving supply contracts to small-scale farmers. They were not convinced that I could maintain the large supplies they need hence I moved to the small village hotels. Now I have a steady market,” says.

To widen her market, she also depends on roadside traders who come to her farm to buy chicken.

“The roadside traders buy the poultry and prepare them and sell in pieces costing between Sh30 and Sh150. This caters for the lower class who cannot afford a whole chicken,” she says.

Her parting shot? “With poultry farming, you have to get creative in terms of looking for a market. You have to have a secured market like a hotel so that when one is flooded, one is secured.”