Is The “Million-Shilling” Quail Business In Kenya Just A Passing Wind?

The Kenyan cyber space, especially Facebook, is awash with this “Million-shilling” business idea of quail farming. I thought the social space is saved from this “euphoria” until a close friend of mine enthusiastically brought the topic up as we had our evening drinks. “Huh, Evans, what if we were having these drinks at the millionaire’s club?” He said laughing. I had not imagined that he had read my articles, but I was glad the lets-meet-at-the-millionaire’s club mentality was having a positive impact in his life.

“So tell me Evans, is this a real big business or is it just a short-lived hype?” he asked. I was glad to have this question because I had really thought about it since I started seeing the huge demand of quails and quail products. Here’s what I think:

Let’s first address one major fact of this million-shilling business; it is a business! That means it is not spared from the factors that affect other businesses. The supply-demand-cost matrix applies here perfectly. From my primary school business studies, I know that when the demand for a commodity is high and supply is low, the price automatically goes up.

Now look at the proportions of supply and demand of quails and quail products in Kenya. While there’s a mammoth demand (for lack of a bigger known animal), only a couple of farmers are producing and from my studies, it is not more than 5,000 birds and eggs per month. What would we expect of prices in such a scenario? Sincerely, I am not surprised to see a fertilized quail egg being sold at 65 shillings and a laying quail going for 1000 shillings – and as a matter of fact, those are the prices!

So how long are these prices going to be there?

Obviously, these prices are inflated a bit too high and the profits that quail farmers in Kenya are currently enjoying will only be available for as long as the demand is so high and supply so low. So how long is that? Well, no one can tell but from my interaction with the market and producers, this is not likely to happen in 2014. I foresee that the quail business will only reach its demand-supply balance earliest by 2015.

So will that be the end of quail farming business?

I strongly believe that what we are experiencing is the start of a business whose end is not near. Remember we are talking poultry here. I do not know how the chicken farming business started, because I am sure I wasn’t born by then, yet it is still one of the most lucrative businesses with the likes of Nelson of Muguku Farm literally making billions from it. I don’t see why quails would be different.

And hey, the idea just got born in Kenya; it has been in practice for a long period in other countries…

I am actually a little embraced that our Kenyan people are getting into this business in 2013! I have done research about the business in other countries and I was very surprised to find out that our brothers in Nigeria and South Africa are way ahead. Quail farming in these countries is a fully developed multi-million dollar industry. I wouldn’t even want to talk about developed countries in other continents with regard to this business.

By the way, have you tasted quail meat? I have, and honestly, this is the best meat I have ever had. I am not a fun of eggs but I am told that quail eggs are very tasty and they are a great benefit to our health. But forget about all the claims of quail eggs having medicinal value; the sweet taste of quail meat and the fact that this is white meat is enough to keep the business going and profitable for centuries. So drop that this-is-just-a-passing-wind mentality and go make the huge profits while the supply is low and demand high.

If you would like to meet other quail farmers making it big in Kenya, be sure to join the Quail Farmers Kenyagroup on Facebook. If you would like me to do a strategic plan and offer you all the technical support to help you start a profitable quail farming venture, kindly email me at enthiga@gmail.com.

I wish you all the best and let’s meet at the millionaire’s club. Cheers! 

Young Kenyans Abandoning Jobs To Get Into The Million-Dollar Quail Farming Business

I must confess that I am yet to see an avalanche like I now see with youths rushing into the quail farming business in Kenya. Since I started posting articles about poultry farming on this blog, about 90% of those who respond to the posts show an astounding interested in quail farming. But what really caught my attention, is the number of young Kenyans who have told me that they quit their jobs and other businesses for farming, and to specialize in quail rearing. I know you might wonder why any sane youngster would think of taking such a step; I also did, but not until I talked to some of them and listened to their maths and logical thinking.

Why would anyone leave their jobs for quail farming business?

That is the first question that I asked Carol when she told me that she had quit her human resource job at a medium-sized firm in Nairobi to do quail farming. She looked at me with a smile that seemed to ask, “You mean you can’t see?!?!”

Carol quite her job early this year, and together with her partner Zack, they got into farming as a business. Well they have a few other projects like rabbits, chicken and green house farming running but they have concentrated on quail farming and from the way they talk about it, I bet they are a happy dual.

So what inspired you into starting this project?

“The rabbits, chicken and greenhouses are backups; I will tell you about those later but let’s talk quails first.” That was Carol telling me as she started describing their project. “Recently, Kenyans have become increasingly aware of the health benefits of taking white meat as opposed to red meat. That really enlarged, and still is enlarging the market for poultry, rabbit and pig meat.

Now quail farming beats them all. The advantage of quail farming compared to the other forms of farming is threefold:

1.       Quail farming business is relatively new; hence the supply is very low while the demand is extremely high and growing.

2.       Quail eggs contain high levels of antioxidants, which gives them a medicinal value. This is not so with eggs from the other birds that have been kept for business before.

3.       Quails are small birds which mature very first thus are very cheap to feed and house as compared to other birds.”

Let’s get to money matters, I want to see the figures!

“I started with 500 quails. I constructed 10 cages that could accommodate 50 birds each. That cost me about 50K inclusive of the feeders and drinkers. I opted to go for mature quails and was extremely lucky to get the entire batch at 250K, an average of 500 shillings per bird. But since then, I have made much more than the capital I invested. More than 50% of the birds were laying at the time so I was collecting about 300 eggs on a daily basis. I sold the eggs at 20 shillings each making an average of 6K every day. With a turnover of about 200K per month, it only took me the first 2 months to recoup all the investment I had made.”

At this point, I did what I do when an inspiring point overwhelms me – take a deep breath and breath out hard and loud. I thought I had had it all but Carol had much more in store for me.

“I did the egg business for about 4 months before realizing that I was missing out big time.” Missing out?!?! I couldn’t help but wonder what she meant by “missing out”. “Yes, farmers had started looking for quails to keep and could not find them.” She explained. So I started incubating the eggs and guess what I now get for one-week old chick? 250 shillings! That’s after incubating the eggs for 18 days. I have two incubators hatching about 2,000 chicks after every three weeks. So that gives me an average of 500K per month from chicks only. I currently produce more than 400 eggs daily, still with the initial stock of 500 birds. That is an average of more than 12,000 eggs per month so after incubation, I still have more than 10,000 eggs for sale per month.” So you get an additional 200K per month from selling eggs? I asked in disbelieve.

“Not 200K. After farmers realized that it is cheaper incubating eggs than buying chicks, the demand for the fertilized eggs went up. I bought 100 male quails to make sure that all my eggs are fertile and started selling them at 50 shillings per egg. So that earns me about 500K per month.”

What’s your average expenditure per month?

“Zack takes care of that.” She said so I turned to Zack. “How much do you spend per month on average in this project?” I asked. Smiling and pointing towards the greenhouses, Zach says, “These, the chicken and the rabbits take care of that.” That is when the “backup” idea became clear to me. The proceeds from those three projects, which are actually doing very well, are used to settle the electricity bills, buy feeds for the birds and rabbits and pay wages of the workers leaving the dual with a clean 1 million shillings per month.

All the best guys and see you at the millionaire’s club. 

23-year Old University Student Making Over 200K per Month From Poultry Farming In Kenya

I don’t know whether it is the kind of success that poultry farmers in Kenya like Nelson Muguku have made in the chicken rearing business that has motivated more youths to join the business, but one thing is sure; more youths are now considering keeping chickens as a viable business. One such young man is Alphard Ndung'u, a 23-year old third-year bachelor of Economics and Statistics student at the University of Nairobi. Ndung'u made his resolve to go into poultry farming after a six month fellowship programme on climate and economic justice in Norway.

While attending the programme, Alphard Ndung'u happened to meet a 28-year old man who lived in Norway and ran a successful farm. The young man had a farm on which he kept 60 high-yield dairy cows and had become one of the major suppliers of milk to the supermarkets and hotels in his country. Ndung'u was so impressed by the way the young man would attend classes in the morning then rush to the farm after classes to assess the progress, that by the time he left Norway to return to Kenya, he knew that the one thing he would want to do is try his hand in farming.

Starting poultry farming

Ndung'u’s parents had in the past done poultry farming so he decided to take advantage of the infrastructure that still remained from that project to give his a kick start. He started by renovating the old chicken house. He then bought 200 chicks at Sh.60 each and by the time they were getting to maturity, he had used approximately Sh.50,000 for renovations, feeds and the buying of the chicks.

Challenges in poultry farming in Kenya

With the few items Ndung'u inherited from his parents’ chicken project and the savings that he made while in Norway, starting and rearing the chickens to maturity wasn’t much of a challenge. The first real huddle that he faced was searching for a good market for his chickens. He had to literally walk from one hotel to another and it wasn’t very successful at first. However, focused on the foreseeable bright future, he pressed on and finally his breakthrough came. He landed a deal to supply chicken to Roasters Hotel on Thika Road.

Poultry farming in Kenya pays well

From his first lot of chicken, Ndung'u was able to make more than Sh.76,000, thereby returning his initial capital and giving him quite some good profits. He invested the money back into the business and growing the number of chicken to over 1500. He says that each chicken fetches about Sh.400. the one challenge about marketing chicken is that just like any other farm product, there are times the supply is high, which affects the prices.

However, once you get a firm footing on the business, you will easily get supply tenders from big firms and organizations and it pays really well. For example, early 2013, Ndung’u got a tender to supply chickens to the Youth Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Nairobi. Selling 1KG of chicken meat at Sh.300 and more than 300 chicken which weigh about 1.3Kgs each, he makes over Sh.100,000 per month. In addition to this, he also sells 30 trays of eggs to Roasters Hotels every week and another 6 trays every day to another hotel, making Sh.300 per tray. That is approximately Sh.90,000 from eggs.

Good money huh? Vijana kweli tunawesmake doh na poultry farming in Kenya!