Before Independence during the pre-oil era, Nigeria was a giant in the farming sector, but due to oil boom, this sector has been neglected for almost half of the last millennium. With the advent of drop in Brent Crude price, the Government of the day are looking for alternatives to boost our foreign earnings and reserves. In that regards there has been calls all over the country to rejuvenate our Agro sector.

Farming is an extensive topic to be discussed but for this purpose of this article I will streamline it as much as possible. Farming is extensively divided into Arable and livestock farming. Arable farming deals with basically crops and plants while livestock farming deals with rearing of domestics and farm animals.

Poultry farming is the most lucrative of all and widely accepted amongst the population. In this article, I will outline some of its benefits and how to set up a standard and cost efficient Poultry.

What are the Benefits of Poultry Farming Nigeria?

Depending on your budget, setting up a poultry is very easy, you don’t need to wait for a very long time before you make profit. It is one fast way of making cool cash within a very short period of time.
Once you decide on the type of breed to rare it takes an average of six to eight months for them to mature and become meat or start laying eggs.
You don’t need to have millions of naira before you set up a poultry, you can easily set up a cage at the backyard of your house and start making some extra income.
Commercial poultry farming is a great source of employment for the teeming youth.
If you are not planning to rare many birds, you don’t necessarily need a broad knowledge of livestock to start a poultry, even the less educated people make a living from it.
In a population of 180 million people and still counting, there is surely a high demand for poultry products ranging from poultry meats to freshly laid eggs.
How to set up a Poultry in Nigeria?

In this section, I will be paying most attention to people who want to start a poultry for commercial purposes. If you are thinking of starting a commercial poultry farm there are some necessary steps you have to follow, you will need to get your steps right from day one, just to avoid negative results at the end of everything. You have to go through the following steps listed below:

Choosing a suitable location for your farm

The most important step in starting up a poultry farm is selecting a suitable land. Getting a land anywhere is a tedious and expensive task.
For someone who plans to farm for a long time it is better to acquire a parcel of land because owners can chase you from rented lands anytime and it will surely have adverse effect on your total effort.
The area of land to be acquired depend on some factors like the number of birds you intend to raise and most importantly the type of rearing system you intend to use.
It is advisable to acquire land in rural areas that are little bit far from the city because Land and labour seems to be relatively cheap in such areas.
Ensure that you have a source of fresh and clean water supply close to your land of interest because you will need to a lot of water for feeding the birds and cleaning your animal house.
Choosing the appropriate farming system

For commercial purpose, there are about four commonly used rearing systems to effectively keep and manage your birds. Such types used in Nigeria are includes:

Deep liter
Half liter
Battery
Semi-fold
What type of breeds should I choose?

The type of breed you choose will have a great impact in your final output. There are a lot of breeds but for the purpose of this article, I will talk about the three most popular ones with high quality yield.

Layers: This type of birds are basically raised for commercial egg production. However they can also be used for meat production. There are some breeds of layers that can lay up as much as 300 eggs in a year. They are suitable for rearing in large and small quantities.
Broilers: Broilers are poultry breeds that is very suitable for commercial meat production. One disadvantage about this breed is that they consume a lot of food but their growth is rapid and ready for consumption within a short period of time.
Cockerels: The cockerels are also a very good for meat production, their advantage over the rest of other birds is that they easily adapt to the environment and they have high demand in the market.
After choosing the type of breed you want to rare, you will have to decide if you want to start rearing from Day-old-chick (DOC) or Point-of-Lay (POL) for layers only.

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