How to start a Poultry Farming Business in Lesotho with low capital

Poultry farming in Lesotho is one of the small profitable business ideas you can implement. It will depend on what the market demands, If the market demand is high in broilers (poultry for meat), then you should rear poultry for meat. If the demand is high in egg production, you can raise layers or freedom ranger chickens and sell those eggs.

If you need incubators or people who sell chicks for poultry farming around Lesotho, I got you covered my friend. At of this writing, I am staying at Maseru Hamatala, my neighbour has a big farm where he produces chicks for poultry farming. If you are around Maseru and you want chicks for poultry, Just to Hamatala on Wednesday or Thursday, you will see a big truck which is delivering chicks to people who have made orders.

If you are in Berea, there is someone at Hamokhehle and my neighbour at Cana. They produce chicks for poultry farming in Lesotho. Don’t hesitate to ask around about the places I mentioned above. In Leribe, there is someone too, I forgot his name, but go around town asking you will find them.

Hostinger

Now, without any further ado, let me get rolling with the details of this article.

Have you ever wondered which poultry breed to rear for commercial purposes? Have you wondered which poultry breeds can be raised together without complications? Are you even asking yourself as to whether poultry business is profitable or not? I mean, you see people starting poultry businesses each and everyday but, you are always left behind. In this article, I cover all of this, you will no longer ask yourself endless questions.

Here is how this article is organized:

What is poultry farming?

Poultry farming is the rearing of birds with either a plan to sell or for family consumption. Poultry farming is also rearing of birds for eggs production and meat production. This type of farming is mostly common in many countries. This is one of the most common business ideas people start to supplement their incomes or to build their family legacy through farming.

What are the requirements for poultry farming?

If you want to start a poultry farming project or business, there are things you will need so that your project succeeds. But I must say that poultry farming is one of the common businesses in Lesotho; it is easy to start I guess, or it may be that people love eggs and chicken meat too much.

The following are the things you will need to start this project:

  • Housing for your chickens
  • Reliable source of water
  • Feeding tools
    • water utensils
    • food utensils
  • Spade to remove chicken remains
  • Water buckets
  • Medication for chickens
  • Chicken feeds
  • A person who will take care of them

How much money do I need to start a poultry farm?

Many people ask themselves this kind of the question, but to answer it I say, it all depends on your budget. If you have M10,000 you can start this project, if you have M1,000 you can still start this project. For example, if you start with 10 chickens, I don’t think you will need a lot of capital. It all starts with your financial muscle, if it is fit enough, just go in there and grab that business idea and pursue it.

Your financial muscle is the one that will determine how many chickens you will need. That is if you are going to raise layers or broilers. But if you raise freedom ranger chickens, from as little as M300 or from nothing you can start your project. They eat anything these type of chickens, so you don’t need to worry much about incurring costs.

Most of Basotho nationals have these type of poultry in their homes. Someone can give you a freedom ranger chicken for free or for removing weeds in her garden. So this is one easy breed to raise at home.

How much space does 1000 chickens need?

If you are struggling to find the perfect space for your chickens, this section is for you. 7 barn-raised (barn is the house for chickens) chickens require a space of 1 square meter. This is to say that if you want to find the space you need for 1,000 chickens, you will need to do some calculations.

1,000 chickens divided by 7 multiplied by 1 square meter will give you the answer to the space you need for 1000 chickens. How about 20 chickens? The same thing applies, you will divide 20 by 1 square meter. You will then get an answer.

Hostinger

How many bags of feed do I need for 100 broiler?

It is estimated that 1 broiler eats 15lbs of feed in 8 weeks. In some areas, 50lb bag of broiler feed is $22.25. If you do the right calculations based on how much a bag of broiler feed is, you will find how many bags you will need to feed 100 broiler chickens.

What are the 4 types of poultry housing?

There are so many types of poultry housing, you have to make a selection for your business. The housing is based on what poultry breed you may need. Below is a list of poultry housing that you can build for your business:

  • Brooder/chick house
  • Grower poultry housing
  • Brooders cum grower chicken housing
  • Layer poultry house
  • Broiler house
  • Breeder house
  • Environmentally controlled (EC) poultry house

What are the method of poultry farming business?

Turkeys

  • Turkey Farming – these are one of the largest birds in the world. You raise these for eggs and meat. Turkey meat is so delicious, if you rear them for meat, you can make money from it since the price for turkey meat is a bit expensive.

Turkeys take 3-5 months for them to be in a state to be sold. They weigh about 3.5 – 7.2kg depending on the species or whether it is a male turkey or female turkey.

In most cases, male turkeys are a little bit bigger than the female turkeys in size. This is how you can tell if a particular turkey is a male or female. Despite that, a male turkey has a something like a trunk on its face. The most important thing is that turkeys food isn’t expensive, so they are easy to rear.  

Quail

  • Quail farming – these are missiles birds which are mostly found in Europe, and Asia. Quail is about 4.5 to 7.8 inches long and weight about 150 to 200 grams. Body is covered with brown, black, white, grey and blue feathers. They feed on seeds, leaves, roots, wheat, barley, berries and occasionally from grasshoppers and worms.

Quail eggs are medicinal; they contain many nutrients used to cure various disease. One quail egg contains about 14 nutrients, hence why quail are so important.

Quail birds are used for egg production and meat production since it is used to cure many diseases.

Quail eggs are medicinal; they contain many nutrients used to cure various disease. One quail egg contains about 14 nutrients, hence why quail are so important.

Caution:

If you are to go for this type of farming, you should ensure that you make the housing to not have holes at all. If these quails can manage to get out of that housing, they will fly away and not return. These birds can fly so high that you can’t even see them.

Guinea Fowl

  • Guinea Fowl farming – guineas fowls can be raised for egg and meat production. Guinea fowl often referred to as guineas, are gamebirds that are increasingly popular among keepers of small and backyard flocks. Guineas are vigorous, hardy, and largely disease-free birds.

There are many reasons people raise guinea fowl. The birds sound an alarm whenever anything unusual occurs on the farm. While some people find this noise to be a nuisance, others find it to be an effective tool for protecting the farm and make guinea fowl the farmyard “watchdogs.” The loud noise of the guineas has also been shown to discourage rodents from invading the area.

Guinea Fowl are an effective tool for protecting the farm and make guinea fowl the farmyard “watchdogs.”

Caution

If the eggs are removed from the nest, the guinea hen will most likely make a nest somewhere else. If all but four or five eggs (marked for identification) are removed, she may return to the same nest and continue laying.

Ducks

  • Duck Farming – this another farming popular in many neighborhood. Ducks are a little bit smaller than geese. When you rear them, ensure that there is a dam nearby, they like to swim in water very much.

Ducks are raised for egg and meat production. Duck meat is a bit thicker than chicken meat, but it is so delicious. Duck feathers are often sold out for many medicinal purposes.

  • Chicken farming

Chicken farming business

In this article, I will be covering only chicken farming only. The reason being, these topics are too broad, and I won’t be able to reach every important detail if I mix them.

I do promise to cover them in the coming weeks or months. I will try my best to do research on them so that I give you a detailed information about them.

Chicken farming is the most common type of poultry farming across the world. Whenever a person thinks of a poultry business, he or she thinks of chickens. This is why today I wanted to go into details about chicken poultry, I hope you like this article as much as I loved doing research about it.

Types of Chicken poultry farming

  1. Layers
  2. Broilers

Layers poultry

Layers poultry farming means raising egg laying poultry birds for the purpose of commercial egg production. Layer chickens are such a special species of hens, which need to be raised from when they are one day old.

They start laying eggs commercially from 18-19 weeks of age. They remain laying eggs continuously till their 72-78 weeks of age. They can produce about one kg of eggs by consuming about 2.25 kg of food during their egg laying period.

 For the purpose of producing hybrid eggs layer, consider the various characteristics of cock and hen before breeding. There are various types of highly egg productive layer breeds available throughout the world.

Broilers

A broiler is any chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) that is bred and raised specifically for meat production or for broiler chicken farming.

 Most commercial broilers reach slaughter weight between four and seven weeks of age, although slower growing breeds reach slaughter weight at approximately 14 weeks of age.

 Typical broilers have white feathers and yellowish skin. Broiler or sometimes broiler-fryer is also used sometimes to refer specifically to younger chickens under 2.0 kilograms (4+1⁄2 lb), as compared with the larger roasters.

Best Chickens for laying eggs

Golden Comet

  1. Golden Comet – this breed of chicken lays brownish eggs. If you are looking to rear chickens which produce brown eggs, this is the right breed to rear. This breed starts laying eggs at 15 weeks and can yield up to 300 eggs per year.

Australorp

2. Australorp – this breed is the honorary national bird of Australia. This breed has many advantages when compared to other chicken breed; it has a good laying capacity of about 250 brown colored eggs per year. This breed starts to lay eggs when hens are 22 weeks old.

Caution:

Don’t make a mistake of rearing this breed together with the other breed; they are so unwelcoming of other breed.

If you want them, ensure that you keep them in their own cage or their own housing, failing which, you will experience problems.

speckled Sussex

3. Speckled Sussex – these hens have one of the heaviest laying capacities in excess of 250 light brown eggs per year.

White Leghorn

4. White leghorn – this breed lays large white eggs in the range of 280 eggs per year. The white leghorn breed is the best for coup rearing. However, they need high maintenance so sure to keep them well fed, hydrated and warm.

Ameraucana

5. Ameraucana – this breed is also known as “Easter egg chicken” and they lay delightful multi-colored eggs. Each hen can lay 250 eggs per year starting at 25 weeks.

Lohmann Brown Classic

6. Lohmann Brown Classic – these are one of the most popular chicken breed world-wide. These hens can lay over 300 large brown eggs per year. They have a small body weight of 2kg and these ones are easy to rear since they do not need much sustenance.

Rhode Island Red

7. Rhode Island Red – this breed has a great adaptability to a range of environments, as a result, they are good for small scale farming for they are disease resistant. They have a laying capacity of up to 250 medium sized brown eggs.

Marans

8. Marans – these French native hens have a striking plumage. They can produce over 200 dark brown eggs per year.Barred Plymouth Rock – these hens are ideal for free range conditions and they have a high laying capacity of 280 brown eggs per year.

Golden Laced Wyandottes

9. Golden Laced Wyandottes – the tranquill nature of this breed allows them to integrate well with other breeds. They lay up to 200 good sized brown eggs per year. This breed is excellent foraging capabilities. These hens tend to be broody and can therefore produce enough chicks to sustain and grow your flock.

Chicken feed good for layers poultry farm business

  • Whole corn
  • Black oil Sunflower seed
  • Yellow maize grains
  • Premium Cleaned Oats

Best Chickens for Broiler farming business

Cornish Cross

  1. Cornish Cross – this is the most common type of broiler chickens in the world. I do believe that almost every time when someone buys chicken meat from the retailer, it is from this breed.

This breed is mostly favored because of their size and weight. You can expect the chicks to be ready for slaughter within 4-6 weeks.

Jersey Giant

2. Jersey Giant – the name says it all, these are one of the giant breed of broilers in the world. This is the breed to produce if you are planning to sell on a small scale, back rearing. These chickens are less sensitive to diseases compared to other type of chicken breed like the Cornish crosses.

Delaware

3. Delaware – this is a special breed which will provide you with both eggs and meat. If you want eggs and meat at the same time, this is the breed for you for they have large meaty bodies.

These chickens are a cross breed from New Hampshire and barred Plymouth rocks. These chickens mature quickly and are fully grown within 12 weeks of hatching.

New Hampshire

4. New Hampshire – the New Hampshire is another breed that has an added advantage of laying eggs. They have large meaty bodies as well.

This breed is used to produce aforementioned Delaware chickens. The chicks are ready for harvest as little as 10 weeks after hatching.

The hens are also excellent mothers, so you don’t have to use an incubator for producing this type of breed if you have both cock and a hen. This breed is further benefitted by their hardiness and ability to withstand adverse environmental conditions.

Bresse

5. Bresse – this is a French breed which can only be classified as the breed to be reared in fronts of houses in France. This breed is very rare, but it has a delicious flavor and meat.

The bresse chickens stand out in a crowd with their white feathers being starkly contrasted by their blue feet. This breed is relatively easy to raise and they have a docile nature.

Orpington

6. Orpington – these have a broad body, they are slow to mature and have a docile nature. These chickens have are best suited for small-holdings and backyard operations. This breed is good for ranges and don’t need to be fed high expensive food with high proteins.

The hens offer the added benefit of being prolific egg layers. Just like Delaware and New Hampshire, this breed will provide you with eggs as well. They are also good mothers to the chicks, so they can hatch their own chicks which will increase your production without using incubator.

Chantecler

7. Chantecler – these chickens were developed in Canada. The chicks mature relatively quickly, within 11-16 weeks of hatching. Until they are harvest ready, they can supply the farmer with the steady supply of eggs as an added advantage.

If you are looking for a chicken breed suitable for free range conditions, then chantecler is the right breed for you to raise.

Freedom Ranger

8. Freedom Ranger – this breed is good for organic farmers looking to raise chickens on pesticides free pastures. The chicks are harvest ready 9 weeks after hatching. As a result, these are the fastest maturing breed.

Freedom Rangers are resourceful and resilient surviving pests and diseases better than the Cornish cross. Although the meat of these chickens is tasty and flavorsome, their bodies are on the smaller side and the carcasses will not be as large as some of the other breeds.

Buckeye

9. Buckeye – this breed of chickens is suited to cold weather condition. For those living in the cold areas of Lesotho, this is the best chicken breed for you. For example, people living in the mountainous areas of Lesotho.

In addition to this, these chickens are not sensitive to many diseases and can easily adapt to most environments. This breed is best suited for backyard rearing. However, they are slow to mature; they take up to 21 weeks. Despite that, Buckeye chickens will provide you with high quality meat and a decent amount of eggs as well.

Turken

10. Turken – many people make a mistake of thinking that this breed was made cross breeding chickens and turkeys. But that is not how it is, these chickens are differentiated with their featherless necks.

These chickens tolerate cold weathers and warm ones well. They are able to achieve this through converting feed to body weight quickly.You now have the list of poultry breeds you can choose from while starting a poultry business.

The choice is entirely yours, whether you want to go for layers or broilers. But before making a decision on the type of poultry business you want to start, you should aim to satisfy the needs of your target market.

Classification of Poultry Breeds

English Class

  • Oepington
  • Cornish
  • Sussex
  • Dorking
  • Austsalorp

Asiastic Class

  • Brahma
  • Codin
  • Langshan

American Class

  • Plymouth
  • Rhode Island Red
  • Wyandotte
  • New Hampshire

Meditennanean Class

  • Leghoen
  • Ancona
  • Minorca
  • Blue Adulation


Which is the best chicken poultry?

Many people who want to start chicken farming are faced with this dilemma as to which poultry is better than the other. Is it layers or broilers?

Factors influencing the chicken poultry business

  1. Target Market

An answer to this question is influenced by so many questions. For example, the major thing to consider is whether you already have market for your chickens. If you don’t, maybe you should go back to your drawing board to make an assessment as to how you will overcome that problem.

2. Capital

Another factor to consider is whether you have enough money to start a poultry project. I am saying this because, if you choose broilers and you don’t have enough money to buy refrigerator, you will encounter a loss.

Broilers mature at week 6 and by that time, they need to be sold or slaughtered and be kept in the refrigerator. Failing to do so, those broilers will experience problems because after 6 weeks, their weight is much heavier than their feet can hold.  If you don’t have refrigerators, you will experience a lot of loss.

Apart from these two factors, it all depends on what market is saturated when it comes to which breed is better. If you have a lot of meat demand, then broilers are the chickens you should opt for.

On the other hand, if around you there is a high demand of eggs, well it is clear, you need to raise layers so that they can produce eggs for your customers.

Is poultry a profitable business idea?

When it comes to whether this business is profitable, the answer is YES! Almost everyday people use eggs in their dishes to make excellent recipes. On the other side, people eat meat. This means that if you are producing on a large scale, and you are doing your marketing the right way, you will make a high turnover.

Can a chicken lay 2 eggs daily?

Based on my experience, I have realized that it is possible for a chicken to lay more than 1 egg per day. But as for the layers mainly for commercial purposes, a chicken is expected to lay an egg every 26 hours.

To answer the question, yes it is possible for a chicken to lay more than 1 egg per day. It all depends on how fertile the food the chicken eats, if it is more fertile, it is likely to lay more eggs per day, and it can lay 1 or 2 eggs especially during summer since the timeframe is a bit prolonged as compared to winter season.

What poultry can be kept together?

 Guinea fowls can be raised together with chickens. You can also raise turkeys together with chickens. Guinea fowls can also be raised together with turkeys without having problems.

What are chicken poultry companies available in Lesotho?

In my country being Lesotho, people don’t have websites. We are kind of left behind in the internet of things or internet business. If you want to know where you can buy layers or broilers, you will have to go on Facebook to search about that.

In terms of prices, people differ as to how much they sell their chickens. It depends on the demand of the community, so I won’t be able to exactly give prices.

Recap

We finally reach to the end of this article. In this article, you learned that when talking about poultry, we don’t normally talk about chickens only. The topic is broad, there turkeys, quails, guinea fowls, ducks and then chickens which was covered in this article.

We also learned that chickens can be reared for egg production and meat production. I listed almost things I thought you should know before starting a chicken poultry, so now the ball is in your court. Until next time, ciao!

One thought on “How to start a Poultry Farming Business in Lesotho with low capital”

Comments are closed.