What Comprises the Poultry Value Chain?

©Shutterstock A hen drinking some water from a nipple.

What do you think of when you see the National Theatre? Did people wake up and decide to just put up such a magnificent structure? No! Different experts from land surveyors, town planners, architects, and civil engineers to laborers were involved from the conception of the idea to the final construction of the building. The poultry industry is the same – you don’t just have that egg or chicken on your plate by accident – there are many processes that have to be carried out. 

 The poultry value chain involves the set of activities that are undertaken to ensure that poultry products reach the end customer. Below, I am going to describe the various stages in poultry production for both meat and eggs:

Egg Production Value Chain

1.  Feed production: Chickens are living organisms so they require quality nutrition to perform at optimal levels (i.e. produce more meat or lay more eggs).

©Shutterstock Feed mill for the production of feed for livestock and poultry

2. Parent Stock: Desirable breeds will be allowed to mate and produce fertilized eggs which will later be hatched.

©Shutterstock Some male and female chickens which can be crossed

3. Hatching: After the eggs have been fertilized, they are kept under optimal temperature conditions in incubators until they are hatched. After the eggs have been hatched, they are then distributed to poultry farmers as day-old chicks.

©Shutterstock Farmer controls chicken eggs in an incubator 

4. Poultry farming: Farmers will raise the chicks until they mature to slaughter weight or lay eggs.

5. Vaccination: Again, chickens are living things just like us so they are also prone to infections and one way to mitigate this is by vaccinating them.

Image from Pexels Person holding a vaccine with black gloves

6. Packaging or Processing: After the eggs have been produced they are usually packed in crates while broilers are dressed and refrigerated.

Image of neatly packaged chicken from https://tinyurl.com/ybosvrep

7. Marketing: After producing the chicken or eggs, you definitely have to sell them and this is where marketing comes to play. Various strategies can be employed here like opening a cold store or egg depot or selling your products over the internet.

8. Transportation: Sometimes there may be a need to send the products directly to your customers as against them coming to your physical store location. This is especially true for online-based operations.

9. The customer finally receives the product.

Conclusion

I hope this write-up has opened your eyes to different possibilities in the poultry industry. For example, you may decide to set up an egg crate-producing factory or formulate poultry feed – all I’m trying to say is you do not necessarily need to be a farmer to reap the full benefits of the poultry industry.

If reading this article piques your interest in starting your poultry venture, it will be in your best interest to write a good business plan. Even if you don’t necessarily have the time to write your own, don’t worry. Just send us a WhatsApp message by following this link https://wa.me/233592239127. And we’ll draft a professional business plan for you at a very reasonable price.

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