“It is costly to feed chickens every day with commercial feeds. I formulate my own and save up to Sh25, 000 a month. I buy ingredients used in making the feeds from manufacturers and mixing them thus reducing their costs by more than half,” says Jackson Njuguna, a farmer in Lari.
Jackson uses maize bran, cotton and sunflower seeds, and fishmeal and wheat pollard. He buys the ingredients from companies in Industrial Area.
“I pack them in 50kg bags and sell to farmers. I also feed my birds the feeds I buy 1kg of maize bran at Sh22, lime at Sh7 and salt at Sh15. Before, I used to buy 50kg layers mash at Sh2,100. It now costs him Sh1, 600 to make his own feeds of the same quantity.
The most costly ingredients are chicks’ premix, which goes at Sh500 a kilo, with layers and growers’ premix going at Sh290.
He sells 50kg of layers mash at Sh2,000 while growers and kienyeji at Sh1,750. Chick mash, on the other hand, goes for Sh2,025.
The former accountant says the poultry feeds give him about Sh100,000 a month. He has 600 chickens.
Njuguna advises that it is wise to test the formulated meals in a laboratory to ensure they have the right nutrients.
“Do not give your poultry feeds that have not been tested and certified that they have the right proportions of nutrients.”
He notes that he only requires 30 minutes to come up with the right proportions of feeds for his chickens.
“Chick and layers mash have the same calories per kilo. However, the level of protein in chick mash should be about 18 per cent of the total nutrients while that of layers 16 per cent,” he says.