chukskafor:
Ok bro, let's keep our fingers crossed till then.
But how much are they selling at the open market per crate?

They usually sell at N1,200/crate

chukskafor:
Oga Farouq, if one needs fertilised Guinea eggs, can you supply... will like to start hatching them

I buy from the open market so I can’t guarantee their viability. I bought 100 the last time, came back home and candled them all before putting in an incubator, I found 16 bad ones. And this was after I sat down in the market to pick the freshest ones.

Maybe next year when I have my own breeding stock, I can start selling fertilized eggs/keets.

All4good:



Wow you just re-motivated me to give chickens another shot in my animal husbandry.

I did Noiler birds two years ago and the experience breeding just 50 DOC to 2kg was a disaster with feed prices increasing weekly within 2 months.

And then it wasn't as maintenance free as the Goats and Sheep's I now breed.

I will be following this thread to learn with you on your research

I was just discussing this yesterday with a friend. I think the bulk of the work is when they are chicks, but once they are able to scavenge for their feed, they almost take care of their selves, with little manpower.

HyAccent:


Thanks and God bless you guys.

@Farouq94 Where is you farm located? If you Dont mind I'd like to visit.

Thank you for sharing your experience, it was very refreshing to read.

My farm is located in Kano. Currently I have my incubator at home, so I hatch and brood the chicks at home for 10-14 days then take them to the farm.

samuelgodson:
can't dogs do d trick

I don’t think dogs catch rats. Even if they do they won’t be as effective because of their size.

brendan007:


How can I identify a female?

Identifying is a bit difficult. I use the wattles and the helmet to identify them. Look at the picture below. The males usually have larger wattles and bigger helmet, and the females have flat/very small wattles and their helmet is smaller compared to the males.

Adaba0803:
Pls can someone tell me the breed of this ram ?? And if possible how to determine their breed ?

Looks like the ‘Yankasa breed, you can tell from the horns, length of ears and the structure. Google sheep breeds in Nigeria.

authocratic:

Where's your farm located in the North?

Kano, Warawa.

jidestroud:
A cross between my Ross 308 (Male) and A black Kuroiler (female).

Age: 20 Days

Looks like a cock, very meaty too. I will be in line to get the chicks he sires!

mojid22000:


Thought I was the only one battling rats ���
They can kill a year old chicken if you allow them
Useless creatures
Rat poison and traps and cat is the only combi-solution

Cats are the best. The person that stole my cat will know no peace! I was told hunters also shoot cats down at night. We were finally rid of rats for months.

jidestroud:


My brother, you need to see me setting rats poisoned indomie everyday. It's a constant procedure for me around my brooders and cages inclusive. Just some few weeks back, I had to wrestle one out of the grasp of one which had already killed a 4 month old Kuroiler and broken the leg of the one rescued. Come to think of it, I prefer snakes .

A 4 month old chicken? Wow! Poison is not an option for me, I can’t risk the livestock or the chickens eating it. I guess I’ll just have to populate my farm with cats, I’m already scouting for kittens

maximizer61:
This is my sheep farm. i have 14 sheep and 6 rams

What breed of sheep are these? I have never seen an all black breed of sheep in Nigeria. And also what do you feed them?

I rear the Balami sheep, the largest breed in Nigeria. Sheep farming is profitable but its a long term venture. The rams command a higher price only during festive seasons or when you’re selling to breeders.

@nativechicken how are you chicks doing?

I experienced a major setback this week with rats. My first hatch, 54 chicks, have been reduced to less than 15 within three days. It is very disheartening to see your hard-work being wiped out by pests. My biggest cat was stolen so thats what made them come back, and the other cat I have is next to useless.

Now I have to make all my cages rat-proof and cement all the tiny openings. I never knew rats could eat a one month old chick until I saw what they do them. They kill them and eat out their intestines. Very pesky creatures!

jidestroud:




That's a 10 day old keet? Now I am convinced their growth is quite slow. At first, I thought I was doing something wrong and needed to do get their feeding right.

They are in the same league with local chickens, very slow growers. Unless you get the jumbo guineas, those ones are HUGE and cannot even fly.

I had wanted to start breeding guineas last year when I bought 300 eggs. Unfortunately, I got them from a bad source, half of them were bad (improper storage), I took them to the hatchery and got very bad results. I think I ended up with about 40 keets at the end, of which I had a very high mortality rate.

At the end I ended up with 14 grown guineas, more than half were male so I had to dispose of them. And I know have 4 guineas, I have been getting eggs from them since April.

I realized my incubator capacity was actually 400 eggs and not 300, as I always have one compartment free, so I decided to buy more guinea eggs to fill it up. I’m hoping to have at least 200 guineas before the season ends, then choose the best 50 and keep them as my breeding stock for next year, fingers crossed!

I like how low maintenance the grown guineas are (but they are very high maintenance when they are small), they fly away from the farm to look for more food, and just recently we realized that they’ve been laying eggs under one bush near the farm. So even though they can be domesticated, they still have that wild
-bird instinct.

Here’s a picture of my 10 days old keet from my most recent hatch, I’m looking forward to having hundreds of them.

Excel70:

Bro how do you prepare this
Barka we sallah

I shared the details on page 3 of the thread.

nams77:

Wow! Learnt something. Is cockrel the native local male fowl?

No the cockerels they use are like the American local chickens, much bigger than ours.

Those asking what the fulani eco-type chicken look like, this is a picture of my biggest hen. I initially thought it was a noiler if not for the color of eggs she lays. Her eggs are always big, and light cream in color.

gbemmytop:
Weldone op, can you Pls share how u prepared this Neem-aloe combo and how it's used.
I intend preparing a strong antibiotic for my birds, I believe this would be good. Thanks.

I shared it on page 3 of this thread, under Disease and Prevention/Treatment

QTCL:
I checked out some videos on youtube as i am trying to see how best i can run a kero lamp incubator without a fan,i was able to see some videos without fans,as i dont have constant electricity and i am not willing to spend any extra money on that to power the fan,so i have decided to build one without a fan, can you kindly connect me with the builder of your incubator,my location is Lagos.

The person is in Kano, you can contact him on 0703 092 3024

nams77:

What is noiler? Or do u mean broiler?

Noiler is a cross between broiler and cockerel

Its my favorite day of the week again! Day 20 and I have chicks hatching by the minute. My chickens are still giving me consistent number of eggs every week, and I’m sure its because more than half of them are hybrids, so they lay more eggs than the average local chicken.

By the year end I should have hundreds of chicken if production continues consistently. The issue of feeding is still being explored and I’m excited for the prospects.

I made some fresh Neem-Aloe extract yesterday for my chicks. I usually drink some from each batch, its very bitter but then its a medicinal powerhouse.

With this and other bio-security measures, most of your poultry diseases will be taken care of.

This is what it looks like

Note: Its preferred that you store your organic medicines in glass jars or clay pots: these do not absorb flavor neither do they leach chemicals. If you don’t have them available, use safe plastics. They usually have ‘HDPE free’ written underneath them.

wisdomline:



Yes, whilst following the process above.

Okay, will try that. Thanks!

babyboy4every1:
Does your Incubator look like the ones below. This is one is dual. It uses electricity as well as lantern. How do you regulate the temperature. For someone that is not always around, do you think, he/she can use the kerosene one. I blif if the temperature is too much and i wasn't around what do you think will happen

Yes that is how my incubator looks like. But if you look at the pic I posted, mine has a thermostat attached on top so I’m able to see the temperature and humidity of the incubator. It appears yours doesn’t have it, so you need to get that portable thermometer and put it inside.

You certainly need to be close if you’re using an incubator like this. So maybe you can teach someone how to control and turn the eggs. Worst case scenario when your temp gets too high, the embryos will suffer heat injury and die or hatch with deformities.

babalolaadebayor:
well-done farouq, pls can you share the kerosene lamp photo and incubator, where and like how much I can get it thank you

This is the heat inlet, it is attached outside the incubator and that is where I keep the kerosene lamp. Though there is another one inside the incubator, but I prefer to use this one because there is a fan attached which sucks in the heat and circulates around the incubator. I have posted a full pic of the incubator on the first page of this thread.

Got it for 75k, check the National Board for Technology Incubation near your location, they make a range of agricultural tools.

NativeChicken:


I think for commercial purpose, Karl Hammer has shown that the Compost feed system is the best and most viable option to go with feeding our chickens.
Scaling up a cricket farm, worm farm or bsf larvae system sont b an easy feat.
A Compost system using the rice hull and other organic inputs should b easier.
The good thing is that compost will attract bsf, housefly, worms, crickets and other biota.

Remember his compost includes a diverse ingredient including cereals, bread, pasta and other restaurant waste. So its only natural that his compost pile will provide a diverse food source for his chickens.

I do not have access to food waste on a large scale, so when I eventually go the compost route, it will not be as rich as his, so I will still need alternative sources to make sure the chickens will be well fed.

I think it really depends on your location. I have several termite mounds in my farm, the only issue is they hide underground so I cannot readily give them to the chickens unless I trap them. So if I see that I can trap a large number of them in the pot, to scale, I will only need bigger clay pots, which again are readily available to me at a very low cost.

For the compost system, I don’t have access to green grasses/vegetables year round so that is why I have not fully explored it. But I’m looking forward to starting a garden in the farm where I will be experimenting growing different vegetables year round, so when that kicks off it will benefit this project.

wisdomline:



@Farouq94 - Your efforts are quite commendable!

I like that you are trying to provide alternative, organic protein for your local poultry. I guess, it would be of immense insight to share my personal termite-hunt experience.

Simply, I place used flattened carton or cardboard over the most moist area (especially where I had noticed few insect/termite holes) in my yard. I do this in the evenings. The idea is, by the following morning, you will find termites under the carton. My fowls know this, so they usually cluster around the carton, and start their feast as soon as I remove it.

[/b]Similarly, I rear worms as alternative protein for my local poultry as well[b]. I use waste wood-shaving-litters for this process. There is a part of my little farm where I dump used litters. All you need to do is to add water to the heap of the used litters. In fact, I dispose dirty water from my poultry water-cans and drinkers to the dump site. As a result of decomposition, which is accelerated by poultry dungs, water and heat from sun, worms naturally start breeding underneath the decomposing used poultry-litter dump. You would see hundreds of huge, huge worms when you turn the litters with a shovel or rake. Local fowls like this sumptuous delicacy - which can be achieved at almost no extra cost.

Thank you for sharing your insights.

I am trying to see the easiest way for me to capture the termites on a large scale at the cheapest cost possible. Cartons are not available to me, but I have an abundance of rice straws and stalks, so that seems to be the most economical option for me.

My location is very dry. So I have never seen a worm in my farm. But I have a lot in my home garden, I captured some last year in the effort of starting a worm bin, everything was going fine for a bit, but the liquid content in the bin became too much and the worms all died. It was demoralising and since then I haven’t tried again.

Knowing chickens love them now, I will definitely give it a another go!

Do you use poultry litter only for your worms?

Adeoye007:
Well done everybody, we have a lot of educative and innovative information here. I don't know if you have heard about cricket farming before. Cricket will also serve as a good source of non conventional protein for the birds. Everybody should try and do research on it.

Thank you.

Yes I’ve come across cricket farming when I was researching the BSF larvae. I have a lot of crickets at home and I noticed that whenever I bring out my chicks to stretch their legs, they don’t really eat crickets. But they fight over small termites.

Maybe the grown chickens might eat them.

jidestroud:


Power is relatively fair around here. It's about 19hrs of power daily. I should be worried of by bills instead.
Come to think of it, I stopped brooding using any form of heat source for a while now. Why use heat if the room temp is just right?

Very true. Which is why having a brooding room saves a lot of costs for farmers. I noticed that the room my incubator is in is always warm, so when my chicks hatch I just leave them there for about a week. And I don’t spend extra money providing heat for them. I just left a thermometer there to know when the temperature drops.

Re:

Re: Termites as Alternative Protein Source

Last week, I bought clay pots, chopped sorghum stalks, added some rice straws, then wet all the media and buried them in the ground.

I have no doubt that I’ll capture termites. I’m trying to raise these chickens with as low cost as possible without compromising on quality. The question remains how infinitely scaleable this system is, and if I can supplement my chickens protein requirement even if its by 25%.

I guess I’ll find out when I see how many termites one pot can trap.