olumolar55:

@Hindsight, At Last !!! money will start spinning inn after the gruesome 17 weeks of heavy expensis. The eggs reasonably big.

How many birds did you start with? please keep your diary/book keeping intact as I personally will ask more question on feeding expensis.
For now I will give you a break to concentrate on the Golden Eggs, More Grace bruv/sis

It is Sis oh! . The feeding aspect was quite a challenge as we had already decided from the beginning we were not going to compromise but will use the best feed available. So we have been using Vital feeds even tho it's a lot more costly than most feeds.





@basking i feel u, i hope they have started laying now.

missuzoma:

@ hindsight. relieved dat u r ok. my husband and i set up a poultry farm some years back as an extra stream of income and something went wrong and we lost almost 600 chicks in three days. despite dat he is considering owning a large livestock farm when we tire o ourf white collar jobs and city lights. he has even acquired a huge land in our village. past experience haunts me but he loves farming. at least i know who to ask questions. may your farm last for a very long time and more success.

Thank u my sister. I tell u it wasn't easy at a point we were ready to sell the chickens and forget the whole thing but thank God we stuck it out. I think if u can forget about your past experience and try again u will make it. It does take a lot of patience but in the end u will smile

Bear in mind that the size of the eggs has greatly improved after weeks of laying small-small eggs.

The golden eggs @ last

Where should i start from? I would like to thank Basking for keeping this thread alive. To all those who've followed this thread with keen interest i would like to say THANK U and may God see u thru ur dreams and projects. My layers started laying @ about 18 weeks (phew, ) it wasn't easy cos they ate and ate, anyways we have started selling eggs will post some pixs tomorrow.

I will start by asking u all to forgive me. A lot has happened since i last posted here. We have had a serious crisis with the broilers we have just about 300 left. Also the layers are also presently undergoingf crisis and we've lost nearly 200. We have learnt a lot and are still learning.

I have not been around for much of the time, but i will try and update you from time to time.

Presently our layers are about 7 weeks but have not reached optimum growth while the layers are 3 weeks old today.

The crisis with the broilers has been contained. We are praying that they fatten up within the next ten to fourteen days so dat we can sell them off.

Thank u everyone.

Hi all!
thanks for all the comments and suggestions.
@niapay i honestly dont know what a brooder heater is, pls enlighten us. Thanks

@ disguy well we use the lanterns for both light and warmth @ nite, we dont use it much during the day. Thanks for the observation about the lanterns being too close to the polythene.

@LSA well just bear in mind dat in life everything is a challenge, don't allow little set backs to keep u grounded. best of luck as u get a suitable site for ur project.

@Elube wishing u d God's speed with ur construction. The major problem with broiler production is the marketing aspect but we've been looking at it closely. There is a large market but there are a lot of cunning middlemen between the producers and the market. anyways dat is a topic for another day.

once again thanks.

more pixs,

more pix, All these pixs were taken on friday.

pix,

pix,

pix

My people make una no vex o!
The day old broilers were delivered on the 10th as promised but there has been a delay as regards to the day old layers. I was not on hand to recieve them but my friend and partner was. Went by yesterday and things were ok. As at today we have lost 10 chicks from the 500 chicks 4 died on transit. So enuff stories, see below for the pixs.

@Yaris thanks for staying tuned .

Hi all!
I have been off-color lately. Nothing much has been going on @ the site, just finishing touches. I guess more updates will be coming up when the chicks arrive. Stay tuned and thanks for all the feedback.

Thanks all for ur encouragement.

Hi all.
The person we got to help us manage the poultry is presently engaged somewhere else. He will be free to work with us as from the first of next month. in light of this development we have decided to allow him settle down and put the chicken coop in order by fumigating etc etc. So we will be gettting our chicks on the 10th of June God willing. We r shopping some more today in preparation for take off.

All those thinking of going into this business should prepare well well, cos we r still spending money and the chicks have not even arrived yet.

@Topai7, i dont really know whether the polythene was made from sweeping bags or not i was told that it is more durable than cement bags. Thanks for ur comment.

@ AK123, am not much of a'builder' but the dimensions were given to us by a consultant before we built. The building gulped about N300,000.00, but it may have being a little less if we had used the fence as part of the building. Also we had to do the flooring twice which made our costs to go up by about N80,000.00.

We have ordered our birds @ N180.00 for the broilers and N210.00 for the layers. This cost us a total of N300,000.00. We r expecting delivery by next week. It is likely dat we will get the broilers first.

Hi all thanks for all the comments, keep them coming. So yesterday we bought polythene material to cover the wire mesh so dat the rains wont come into the coop (see attached pix). Also we began negotiations on the day old today we would conclude tomorrow and i will let u know how it goes. We r thinking of starting with both broilers and layers, we'll be discussing with our vet, will also keep u posted on dat.

The floor has been finished finally. Yesterday we went to the market and bought some items such as trays @ N140 per piece (i think it is on the high side), cartons (to partition the brooding room) etc etc. For the trays we had some almunium sheets lying around my friends' house so we took it to the guys who do metal (almunium) works and we will get about 24 small feeders and about ten rectangular feeders. We have also gotten a consultant to assist us during the brooding stage. God willing we will book our day old on tuesday.

Hi all!
Tomorrow we'll be going out to survey equipments (trays, drinkers, etc). We will also check out some hatcheries, tho we already have a place in mind. The flooring is in progress one side has already been finished. Will keep u posted.

Am no expert on building but i think what they did was that the proportion of sand to the cement was too much in the mixture. They also didn't add enough sand to the floor before adding the cement mixture. The floor was so thin at most points that it would crack at the slightest pressure. As I said am no expert so i may be off point.

The old floor is been dug up to make room for the new one.

Hi all thanks for all the comments. We just got someone else to the the floors again. Having to redo the floors again from scratch is so painfull. Hopefully he will be starting tomorrow. My morale is down but my friend is more determined than ever about the poultry, which is a positive cos av been the one literally dragging her along . We learn everyday. Stay tuned.

Sorry meant to say Blink in my last post not Fidelo. Will continue with my posts next week.

Hi all sorry for the lack of updates.
Fidelo u r right i want everything to settle proper b4 we continue. Fidelo i am a she. Thanks.

@Omoola, i live in Kaduna. Stay tuned for more updates.

Hi all

@Fidelo will get back to u with the dimensions.

@Blink I think it would take a 1000 birds.

@ Pleep thanks.

I would have posted the completed pix of the structure but the guys handling the floors did a "NASTY" job yesterday and the whole place was looking horrible today . So as we are going to do the floors again. . Anyways we arent going to let that dampen our spirits.

This is one of the entrances, we partitioned the building into two halves so that we would have 500 birds on each side (we're told dat it would be easier to manage).

Thanks to all for ur comments. The doors have been fixed and hopefully we will begin work on the floor tomorrow. Will be posting more pixs soon.

Progress,

@Mykel thank you. Will definately take you up on the offer.

@Blink, we are still on course. As you can see from the pix below construction work is going on in earnest. God willing the structure will be completed early next week.