If there is any agribusiness venture I would recommend anyone to engage in without thinking twice, it is poultry farming. I find poultry keeping not labour intensive, but very profitable.

I keep various birds in my farm in Rarieda, Siaya County. They include turkeys, doves, penguins, guinea fowls and chicken.

I started with about 50 over one-month-old chicks back in 2008. The 50 birds, mostly chicken, were handed to me for free by a friend called David Kimathi.

Kimathi runs a poultry farm in Ngong, Nairobi. He was eager that I also engage in the same venture because it was profitable.

But before he gave me the birds, he advised that I undertake training in poultry from Kenchic, which I did for two days. The training was on vaccination, feeding and brooding.

I ferried the birds from Nairobi, where I live, to my rural home in Siaya. After six months, I sold about 30 birds to traders at Sh800 each.

I used the money to increase my brood by buying 300 one-day-old Kenbro chicks at Sh100 each from my friend Kimathi.

HAVE MULTIPLIED

The birds have now multiplied to more than 2,000 of various species, including doves, guinea pigs, guinea fowls and chicken. I have other farms where I grow crops, trees and keep fish.

Due to irregular supply of electricity in Rarieda, I incubate the eggs at home in Nairobi and after hatching, I ferry the chicks there. I have realised that the secret to minimise on the costs of feeds and other expenses is to import them from Uganda.

I buy my feeds from stockists in Uganda because there they are cheaper. A 90kg bag of maize germ in Uganda is Sh800 but here it is about Sh1,500.

Besides commercial feeds, I feed my birds on omena, sunflower and cotton cakes and maize germ, which I also buy cheaply in Uganda. I spend up to Sh40,000 a month on feeds.

I get about 2,000 eggs every day which go for between Sh10 and Sh30. I sell the other birds, turkeys and guinea fowls for between Sh1,500 and Sh4,000.

I advise fellow farmers not to venture into any kind of business without training because it may cost you much if you do not know what to do.

I am a firm believer in technology, hence the reason why I use it to run my poultry farm. I have installed two cameras on my farm to help me monitor the birds through my smart phone and for security purposes.

The technology is called Remote View Monitoring. It is able to take pictures of people coming in and out and relay them to my smartphone.

That means I walk with my farm in my pocket because I can tell everything that is going on there from wherever I am. To use the technology, one must have a good smartphone that has faster Internet connection and can host the software.

A US-based friend helped me buy the gadgets, which he uses at his home here in Kenya. I invested over Sh200,000 in the gadgets.

Through the technology, I can see from Nairobi what my workers are doing and how the birds are faring. I also keep tilapia and mud fish in 10 ponds. I embraced fish farming following the 2011 Economic Stimulus Package. I sell fingerlings and fish to traders in Siaya at between Sh5 and Sh300 each.

For trees, I grow blue gum and gravalia. My dream is to run my own saw mill. I bought the seedlings from Kenya Forestry research Institute at Sh10 each.