Zachary Munyambu, a poultry farmer from Ngoigwa in Thika, Kiambu county, recalled making his highest income after ditching employment for poultry farming.
The accountant by profession resigned from his accountant job in 2006 to start poultry farming. While in employment, Munyambu was keeping the indigenous chicken at his rural home in Gatundu North in Kiambu.
He decided to commercialize his venture and sold all the indigenous chicken to focus on layers fully. He started with 100 chickens, and 90 percent of them were laying eggs after five months. In a day, he could collect three trays of eggs.
He kept on increasing the number of birds, and by 2018, he had 3,800 birds. With 2,000 birds, the farmer said he made between Sh80,000 to Sh100,000, an amount that is two times higher than his monthly income as an accountant.
This is how I make Sh. 650,000 per month from farming
He sells a tray of eggs at between Sh290 to Sh320 locally at his shop in Thika town and to the nearby hotels. His journey has, however, not been a smooth sail due to the high cost of feeds which started increasing in 2018.
“Farmers started making losses, and some abandoned the venture as it was no longer profitable. It reached a point where I was no longer making much profit as the price of layers’ mash continued increasing, so I began downsizing the number of birds. Today, I only have 1,200 birds, and with 1,000 birds, I can only make about Sh40,000,” he said.
He says between 2015-2017, 500 birds would give a farmer 15 trays of eggs, and the first 10 trays were enough to buy feed for the layers, so the remaining five trays were profit.
“If you sell a tray at Sh280, you would get a profit of Sh1,400. So the more birds you have, the more profit you make. With 1,000 birds, you can make a profit of Sh2,000 to Sh3,000 per day. If you sell it as a layer at Sh300 and you have 1,000 birds, that’s a clean Sh300,000,” he added.
In addition, Munyambu notes that the cost of producing a day-old chick to maturity level at five months was previously Sh400, but this has more than doubled to Sh850 due to costly feeds.
