©Shutterstock Farmer checking chicken eggs.
In recent times, many people have discovered poultry farming as a golden ticket to prosperity. They get inspired to enter into the poultry farming business when they hear about names like Kwabena Darko, the founder of Darko Farms. The problem, however, is that many of them don’t realize that it may take years of hard work before any significant breakthrough can be made.
In any business, it is advisable to start small and grow it gradually and poultry farming is no exception. If you keep reading this article, you are going to discover a year-by-year breakdown of how long it will take for a poultry farm to be successful.
Year One
Starting a poultry farm from scratch will definitely involve some financial struggle. This is especially true if you want to rear layers. You would have to allocate money for some fixed assets such as land, structure for the birds, heating equipment, drinkers and day-old chicks. In addition to that, you would also have to spend money on operating expenses such as feed, utility, salary, etc. Since the layers do not start laying until after the 4th month, all these costs would have to be borne without getting any sniff of revenue for the first 4 months. Even when they start laying in the 5th month, usually only about 5% of the birds will lay and the sizes of their eggs wouldn’t be large enough to command the normal market price. The birds will only start laying at peak capacity from the 7th month onwards but they will be economically inviable to keep after approximately 18 months to 2 years so they would have to be sold off as spent layers.
Let’s assume you are starting the farm in January. Since you are starting with 500 birds, you are going to employ a growth strategy of getting 5000 birds by the 5th year. You would need to add 500 birds in the 5th and 9th months each in the first year to ensure that even when you sell the spent layers, you would still have hens laying at peak capacity. This will consequently increase the operational expenses so for the first year, a lot of investment would have to be put into the farm without any significant returns.
Year two
For the beginning of the second year, you would have about 1500 birds. At this point, our expenses would still be far more than the revenue you generate. But you are also pursuing a growth strategy so you would have to add another 750 birds in the first month, 5th month and 9th month. This will come with some fixed asset costs such as the expansion of structure and purchase of heating equipment and drinkers but you will not need to purchase any more land since you will be using the same old land. Operational expenses will definitely increase too. You would generate revenue from the sale of 1000 spent layers since 1000 of the total 1500 birds you added in the first year would have grown past peak laying capacity. Even though the farm at this point would be making a significant amount of revenue from egg sales, the expenses will still outweigh the income generated so you would need to invest more.
Year three
At the beginning of the third year, you would have 2750 birds in stock since you would have already sold 1000 of the birds as spent layers in the previous year. Just like you did in the previous years, you would stock the farm with day-old chicks in the 1st, 5th and 9th months, this time with 1000 day-old chicks each. In this year you would generate money from the sale of 2000 layers as they would have grown past peak laying capacity. In addition to that, you would also generate a significant amount of money from egg sales. Even with this, you would still need to invest money into the farm since the revenue generated wouldn’t be enough to cater for all the expenses. Mind you you added more chicks so you would definitely spend money on expanding the structure to accommodate these birds. The money you would have to invest in this year, however, would be significantly lesser than what you invested in the previous years.
Year four
In beginning the fourth year, you would have about 3750 birds in stock. You are going to add 1250 birds each in the 1st, 5th and 9th month each. Unlike you did in the previous years, you are not going to spend money on fixed assets such as structure, drinkers, heating equipment, etc. since the ones available would suffice for the accommodation of the birds. 2750 layers will grow past peak laying capacity in this year. The revenue you would generate from the sale of eggs plus the revenue you would generate from the sale of the 2750 spent layers would be enough to cater for all the operating expenses and the cost of the day-old chicks you would purchase to stock the pen in this year. This is the year you may not have to invest any more money into the farm as the proceeds would be able to cater for all the expenses. You are even likely to make a little profit in this year.
Year five
At the beginning of the fifth year, you would have 4750 birds in stock. You are going to add 1350 birds each in the 1st, 5th, and 9th months each like you did in the previous years. You would have achieved our growth target of 5000+ birds in this year. Just like in the previous years, you wouldn’t need to spend on fixed assets and you would be making enough revenue from the sale of spent layers and eggs to take care of the expenses. You are going to make profits without investing any money into the farm again since you wouldn’t be increasing the number of layers you stock the pen for a few years. In this year, you would definitely not recuperate all the money you have invested in the farm thus far. If you keep up with up with the good farm management and biosafety measures, it wouldn’t be too long until you have fully recuperated all of our investment into the farm.
Conclusion
Starting and maintaining a poultry farm can be very profitable but it isn’t easy. However, if you adhere to biosafety measures and farm management practices, you are very likely going to succeed. You may even recover all your investment after the third year if you decide to grow the farm very slowly or not grow at all. All you need is good planning and a proper financial understanding of the business you are undertaking.
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