Farmers Advised To Commercialize Poultry Farming

Shiffa Chicks Limited, a poultry slaughterhouse based in Chwele Bungoma County will partner with a donor to supply feed to contracted chicken farmers from Western Kenya. Director Shiffa Chicks Limited Mr. Abdi Abdi has asked farmers to increase their production to at least between 300 and 5000 chicken to benefit from the contracts. Speaking in Kakamega during the ongoing Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) open week exhibition, Abdi urged farmers from Western region and especially Kakamega to take advantage of KALRO’s Improve chicken to practice extensive chicken farming to benefit from the slaughterhouse which offers ready market. KALRO Kakamega is a National Non-Ruminant Research Institute with a recently launched 2000 bird capacity breeding and multiplication house for improved varieties of indigenous chicken. ‘We have a programme with donors who in a short while will be distributing inputs to contracted farmers with a minimum of 300 chicken to a maximum of 5000 chicken,’ he noted. He said the slaughterhouse not only purchases chicken from farmers but also other products like feathers, gizzards and droppings, which will increase the incomes of farmers who take the venture seriously. ‘Nothing will go to waste once you work with us as a farmer, we have a market for all products from your poultry farming,’ he noted. Abdi said the company which currently processes 4000 to 5000 chicken per week targets to process at least 8000 chicken per day in two shifts through the constant supply of chicken from farmers across the region. He noted that the factory obtains chicken supply from Kisumu, Siaya, Bungoma, Trans Nzoia and goes beyond the borders to Jinja, Uganda due to low supply from Western Kenya farmers whom he said rear chicken at a domestic level instead of commercializing their enterprises. ‘I heard that you people from this region feed chicken traditionally, but I wish that you move away from that and rear poultry at a commercial level because you are rearing chicken at a domestic level which is not beneficial at all,’ he said. Bungoma County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Irrigation and Cooperatives Ms Monicah Fedha who attended the KALRO exhibition day in Kakamega said that Shiffa Slaughterhouse requires at least 1.6 million chicken to slaughter per year. She said when the slaughterhouse began operation, Bungoma County assured the investor that they had a capacity to supply 3million chicken per year, but along the way the county could not sustain the target. ‘We are putting strategies in place to increase production of chicken in Bungoma County. We also have a demand for both chicken and eggs providing a market for eggs from KALRO Kakamega,’ she disclosed. The Low uptake of chicken farming among western Kenya Farmers and especially Kakamega despite the improved technologies has led to introduction of a new breed line of chicken by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) to suit the needs of farmers.

Source: Kenya News Agency