Herrine Omenda, an accountant, made the bold decision to venture into poultry farming. Propelled by the passion she had developed in agriculture since her childhood, Omenda decided to ride on a completely new path and is steadily rising to be a successful farmer in Kisumu county.
Contrary to the perception by some philosophers that farming is not meant for the elite, Omenda chose poultry farming to earn a living. Despite not getting an opportunity to attend relevant training, Omenda happily says she has found farming a smart way to make money. “From my little background in farming, I followed my passion and picked up the venture and todate, things are positive,” she says.
Omenda started the business in January. On average, she takes home Sh50,000 every month. With Sh70,000, she constructed a poultry house and acquired 300 one-day-old chicks at Sh120 each. “A quick tip I got was that Kuroiler chicken breeds are preferred because they do well in almost any climate and have averagely high level of production compared to local varieties. This made me settle on the variety,” she says.
However, due to unpredictable challenges, she says some of birds died and she sold others, leaving her with 150 healthy ones. One year down the line, the business is promising and she anticipates a steady profit.
The farmer says she has a fair market base and each day customers troop into her Mixa Farm in search of chicks. “Things have turned to be better for me, the birds are absolutely profitable. On a daily basis I get at least 40 eggs from the Kuroiler hens.”
She quickly realised that incubating the eggs is more profitable than directly selling them. “I don’t sell the eggs, I only subject them to an incubation process and within 21 days they are hatched into real chicks,” she says. In the incubator the fertilised eggs take 19 days and another two days in the hatchery before they hatch into chicks.
From the incubation stage, her duties are lessened as she transfers the one-day old hatched chicks into a brooder section where they are introduced to chick mash as they grow.
Currently her stock at the brooder is averagely good and comprises 300 chicks (one month old) and 500 chicks (two to three weeks old). She sells day-old chicks at Sh100, one-week-old chicks at Sh180 while one-month-old chicks fetch Sh250 each.
At the incubation stage, Omenda’s manpower is boosted by her husband Charles Odira, 49, who does the technical work. Odira, who makes incubators at their Mixa Farm in Nyamasaria, says each of the incubators can accommodate on average 1,232 eggs at time. Omenda, though, still pursues her CPA III at the Kenya College of Accountancy, Kisumu branch. She has found the venture an ideal way of making money compared to any other formal employment.
The 32-year-old farmer states that she now dreams big not just for herself but also to transform the community through empowering other women. “I look forward to turning the venture into a more vibrant training centre for young women on entrepreneurial skills so that they can earn decent living,” she discloses.
On a daily basis much of her time is spent taking care of the birds at their three acre farm named ‘Mixa’. “A prosperous community requires women who are economically empowered and that is why my intent is to establish training programmes here for women groups,” says the farmer.