Lessons In Poultry

09/08/05

After I returned from Kisii I went with Robert to visit John, who is a local primary school teacher and an avid poultry farmer.

Its funny, being a teacher here seems to be one of the better paying professions (I guess just compared with selling lettuce or driving a Matatu or subsistence farming, like so many others are doing.) John had a whole lot of questions about the US, some of them baffling as always (I got, "If you don't have cows where do you get milk?" again and "what's pizza?" which after I explained it he said "so you take it with coffee?" I think because I mentioned it's Italian origins.) After answering all of his questions and skirting the inevitable problem of his daughter's university fees (she had excellent grades in secondary school, he made her fetch me her exam results), we went outside I got to start picking his brain about poultry farming. I actually find it interesting, although I'll spare the details. I still have more questions and I'm sill crunching numbers, but I think it will be best to start with a dozen or so local layers and 50 or so hybrid chicks, which should be ready to sell in around 6 weeks. Then we can start hatching some of the local birds, maybe try some cross breeding experiments. The profit margins aren't huge, but they're something and they're steady, and the orphans can be involved in the process since the structure is at the primary school where most of them are. We'll also be shopping for some sugar cane fields, which turn bigger profits but not for 18 months. Next week we will organize the council and let them elect a Board and throw out ideas for how best to reinvest some of the profits into the health education of the community. Then we register the group and open an account and wire over the money. While we're waiting for it I'm going to front enough to build the chicken coup so we can start ASAP.

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