One of Kiambu’s greatest poultry farmers is a teacher who quit his job to pursue his hobby.
Nelson Muguku, a trained carpentry teacher, quit teaching in 1967 at the then Kabianga teachers college, currently Kabianga high school in Kericho to further his passion in rearing poultry.
“When I told the principal that I was resigning, he thought I was crazy for I had a stable job. But I was determined. I quit all the same and armed with only a bicycle and scanty furniture, I left Kabianga by train for my Rukubi home in Kikuyu,” he said.
He lightly adds: “My parents thought some bolts in my head had loosened. They were almost convinced that somebody was misleading me.”
The entrepreneur says that his empire started with a few chickens which he reared as a pastime.
“It all started as a hobby during my days as a teacher. I had two chickens and a cock that I reared at a corner of my school house. The principal requested me to bring some eggs for his hens to brood on condition that when they hatched we would share the chicks. That is how it all began,” recalls Muguku.
The father of six now owns and runs Muguku poultry farm in Kikuyu, estimated to be worth more than Sh3 billion. It is one of the largest hatcheries in the country with a capacity to hatch 200,000 chicks a day.