How To Start A Profitable Poultry Farming Business In Nigeria

Posted by Retrieved on Sumicon Global Ltd 
Poultry farming is one of the most lucrative agriculture businesses in Nigeria. Thousands of tons of poultry products are consumed everyday yet, the demand remains unsatisfiable. A large quantity of Nigeria’s poultry products are imported into the country. But with this aggressive imports happening, not enough poultry products are available to meet the local market demand.
About 160 million Nigerians consume a lot of poultry products, ranging from chickens, turkeys, eggs, and a lot more. This shows that the opportunities surrounding poultry farming are exponential in highly profitable ways. While a lot of people supply frozen poultry products to restaurants, events, and more, many others supply mostly eggs, and the rest supply poultry feeds. The market opportunity existing in poultry farming is extremely wide and lucrative if executed right.
If you’re looking for answers to questions like; how to start a poultry farming business? How to make poultry farming very profitable? How to start poultry farming with low capital? This poultry farming article will explain everything in a very detailed manner for you to easily understand and start your own profitable poultry farm. With the information in this article, you can start off today with little capital. It’s important to always start small and over time grow exponentially because you need to understand all the perks in the business, without losing so much money.

Before we dive right into the poultry business plan, here are 4 major reasons poultry farming is a very profitable business in Nigeria:

How To Start A Profitable Poultry Farming Business

1). Food Is Important To Everyone:

Everyone must feed to stay alive, but a majority of individuals value poultry products above other types of meals. Poultry animals like chickens, turkeys, and more feed millions of homes every day. Their importance in meals mostly insinuates that people can’t do without them.

2). Poultry Animals Grow Very Fast:

It takes 28 weeks for an average chicken to be fully grown and ready for market. It also takes 21 days for a chicken’s eggs to hatch. But with the use of incubators, it takes a lot lesser for chicken eggs to hatch. Poultry animals in general like turkeys, chickens, guinea fowls, and more have a fast reproduction and growth rate.

3). Poultry Animals Lay A Lot Of Eggs:

An average layer lays one egg every two days. A farm with 1000 layers would produce at least 800 eggs a day. The market value of the eggs are extremely profitable with 1000 layers capable of producing 400,000 Naira ($1,333.4) in sales every month. A larger portion of this birds would mean an explosive revenue rate.

4). Price For Poultry Products Are Attractive:

The price of poultry products has been on the rise for years. With an average sized chicken costing at least 2,500 Naira ($8.4), the profit margin accrued never stops growing. Selling 10,000 chickens in a month would amount to 25,000,000 Naira ($83,333.4) in revenues generated.

With these lucrative poultry benefits, here is how you should prepare your poultry business plan. This “poultry farming business plan template” will ensure your poultry farm turns up profitable in a short period if you put in the right work to it.

The first thing you need to consider if you want to go into poultry farming is:

Poultry Farming In Nigeria - Poultry Layers Cages

1). What Poultry Niche Do You Want To Focus On:

The poultry farming business is wide. People majorly assume the market is all about growing chickens, turkeys, and guinea fowls. Poultry farming covers a lot from meat production to egg production, to feed production, to medicinal products, to chicken raising, to equipment production and a lot more. When you identify a niche that you can work with, you can start your farm.

2). What Breed Of Bird Do You Want To Raise:

There are various bird breeds you can raise on your poultry farm. Each comes with its own maintenance cost. But once you can determine the breed you want and know where and how to reach your potential customers, you can begin. Here are some bird breeds you can raise on your poultry farm: Chickens (Broilers & Layers), Turkeys, Guinea Fowls, Quails, Peacocks, Ducks, Geese, etc. Choosing the breed will help you determine what you want to achieve from each bird. If you want to go into meat production, broilers are raised for these. If you want to produce loads of eggs, layers are raised for these. Every breed has it’s main specific purpose.

3). Business Location:

The location of your poultry farm is very important. Setting up a farm in a remote area is far cheaper than in a city area because of the distance and low population. Usually, governments do not permit large-scale poultry farming in urban areas because of the health implications, so you’d need to place your poultry farm off-city. The location must not be too far from a city area for ease of transportation and exposure to potential buyers. It’s a lot cheaper and safer to travel for 1 hour than to travel for 6 hours to deliver your poultry products. Pick an area with a good road network to an urban environment and you’re on a good track with your poultry farm.

4). Capital Investment:

As with other businesses, starting and running a poultry farm in Nigeria is capital intensive. Depending on the location and how large you want your poultry farm to be, it can take you between 100,000 Naira ($333.34) to 10,000,000 Naira ($33,333.34) to start up your poultry farm. The size of the poultry farm will determine how large your turnover will be.

5). Poultry House, Equipments, & Facilities:

The poultry housing system is critical to the success of your poultry farm. The type of poultry housing system you focus on will affect how your birds are placed, identifying productive & unproductive birds, and their overall health. There are three types of poultry housing systems. These are:

a). Free Roam:

This is a system where chicks are bought and allowed to roam about feeding themselves. This system is not right for anyone who wants aggressive production for wide-scale commercial use because the birds could go missing or worse.

b). Battery Cage:

This is a system where the birds are kept in cages and fed on a regular basis. This system is a highly organized and effective poultry housing system used in poultry farming. Here, the birds have access to feed and water through troughs and laying nests. The cages are separated into various compartments and also creates a perfect environment for laying eggs.

c). Deep Litter:

In this system, sawdust is usually poured on the ground over a wide area so the birds can be comfortable. This makes it relatively easy for cleaning.  The major disadvantage with this method is that it’s difficult for a disease outbreak to be managed.
Asides the poultry housing, many facilities and equipment that will make your poultry farm successful are Egg trays, feeders, drinkers, lighting systems, nests, crates, incubators, heaters, waste disposal systems, and a lot more. If the facilities are thorough, adequate, and of top quality, your farm would grow favorably.

6). Poultry Feeds:

The bird feeds are the most important things to their survival. Without food, none of them will survive. Feeding, been important to poultry farming, accounts for over 70% of all the total expenditure you will incur in your business. You can either manufacture poultry feeds, or you can purchase poultry feeds. Manufacturing the feeds are perfect for very large poultry farms because it saves them a lot of money. If your poultry farm is still small scale, buying feeds is the best option for you because it takes a lot of money to fully set up a feed manufacturing plant.

7). Bird Health:

The general well being of the birds are very important. You’d have to spend periodically on vaccines and medications to ensure the birds stay healthy. Healthy birds grow strong and would generate a lot of revenue.
This poultry farming business plan template is important to starting7 and running a successful poultry farming business. With the right attitude and approach, your poultry farm would be highly successful and could positively contribute to the country’s GDP