Why poultry farmers fail in Kenya

1. No feasibility study
   In most cases, farmers make little or no effort to carry out a feasibility study. The most important of these are the suppliers of day-old chickens, point-of-lay hens, feed, medicine, disinfectants and vaccines,cost of inputs and profit projection . Also often missing are veterinary services and sufficiency of funds
2. Inadequate housing
   To become commercially viable and sustainable, an emerging farmer must provide the chickens with the correct type of housing for the production system practised. Many enterprises failed to do so.
3. Feed
   Broilers have been specifically bred to grow fast (38g to 2,5kg in six weeks) but to reach this, the chickens must be provided with the correct feed. Because feed cost is high (about 70% of production cost), some farmers mixed good quality feed with lower grade feed, resulting in poor growth performance. In addition, some projects are up to 100km from the nearest feed company. Many farmers relies on public transport, which increased the price of a 50kg bag of feed significantly
4. Marketing
   This is one of the greatest problems. Some fail to honor their contracts while others can not handle their finances. Most do not put money back into the business. Because of these problems, many end up selling live birds – an unreliable market as farmers often have to keep chickens for up to eight weeks before they are sold. During this time, they consume the profit.Some farmers doing layers sell them in their active laying period  incurring losses
5. Training
   Most farmers embark on poultry farming without  receive training, a fact evident in the way they rear the birds.

To address these issues Ecochicks has compiled a comprehensive guide to poultry training. Get it here Chicken farming comprehensive guide

To address the issue of planning and acquisation of day old chicks, you can buy eggs incubator and have a sustainable chick source

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