Sherif OSKenya has one of the fastest-growing livestock farming markets in Africa today. With a lot of people looking to dive into the agricultural sector, the livestock section has seen a significant rise in both its market and the number of people trooping into the industry. This is largely attributed to the high rate of profit the business brings.
With many more looking to venture into this industry, it is important to know the core details about the market, including how much it costs to rear livestock and other related details. Here, we will focus on broilers – taking a look at cost of rearing 300 broilers in Kenya today.
Cost of Rearing 300 Broilers in Kenya Today
Broilers are one of the most popular breeds of chicken in Kenya. If you are looking to go into the livestock farming sector, then one of the first things is to estimate how much the process will cost. This is usually more challenging for starters because they will require to calculate capital costs before even venturing into recurring costs. This post makes it easier for beginners to estimate the likely cost they’d incur if they are to start rearing 300 broilers in Kenya today.
Poultry House
The first main cost you need to estimate for is the poultry house. This is very important and should be in place before you even plan to get the broilers you are looking to rear. You need to make that the broilers are comfortable enough in their space so they can develop as expected. It is quite tricky to put a fixed amount on how much this would cost as many factors influence the amount it costs to set up poultry. One of these factors is the cost of renting the land or space. On average, the cost of setting up poultry for 300 broilers ranges between 38, 000 Kenyan shilling – 70, 000 Kenyan shilling, depending on how sophisticated and big you want the poultry to be. One factor you should consider when setting up the poultry is space. Note that the broilers will grow in few weeks and would need space.
Purchasing the Broiler
Once the poultry is sorted, you can then proceed with plans to purchase your 300 broilers. Your target is to get 300 1-day old broilers. There is no specific amount day-old broilers go for. However, based on the recent trend in the market, the cost can be easily estimated. A day-old broiler costs between 80 shillings and 150 shillings, depending on where you are buying from. For the sake of this post, we will leave the cost of a 1-day old broiler to be 100 shillings. Note that if you are buying in bulk, they are usually cheaper. If you are estimating based on the 300 shillings per 1-day old broiler, then you will be looking at 30, 000 shillings for 100 of those broilers.
Feeding
Another very important cost to estimate is the cost of the broilers you are looking to rear. Feeds for broilers come in three different types the starter, the grower, and the finisher. The appropriate blend of these feeds has a lot to do with the growth of the broilers you are rearing. As expected, these classes of feeds vary in price. A 50 kg broiler starter feed costs between 3, 000 shillings – 3, 500 shillings. Three 50 kg bag of broiler starter feed should be enough for 300 broilers for the period, which means you would have to budget 9, 000 shillings to purchase starter feed for the 300 broilers. They might require between five to six bags of growers, however. A 50 kg bag of grower feed costs around the same amount as starters, which is between 3, 000 shillings – 3, 500 shillings. For this article, we can assume five to six bags of 50 kg broiler grower feed costs between 15, 000 shillings to 17, 000 shillings. The broilers will also need between seven to nine bags of broiler finisher feeds. We also expect a 50 kg bag of the finisher feed to cost between 3, 000 shillings – 3, 500 shillings. Using this estimate, seven to nine bags of 50 kg broiler finisher feed will cost between 20, 000 – 24, 000 shillings.
Hence, for feeding, you should budget between 44, 000 – 55, 000 shillings. It should be noted that a proper blend of all these feeds is required for the expected growth of the broilers you are rearing.
Drugs and Vaccination
Another very important thing to budget for when calculating the cost of rearing broilers is the cost of vaccination and drugs. While broilers are not entirely prone to infections, cases like these could occur, hence, the need to plan. The good news here is that vaccination and drugs for broilers are not very expensive. You should estimate between 1200 shillings – 1550 shillings to cover for vaccination. You can budget an additional 500 shilling to sort drugs if the need arises.
Miscellaneous
There are many other things you might need to budget for. If you will be employing workers, for instance, you will need to factor in how much you will be paying them for that period. Urgent cases like the need to change some tools or things in the poultry could come up. Hence, there is a need to budget for all these. You can save between 2, 000 shillings – 3, 000 shillings for miscellaneous.
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