Millionaire Chicken Farmer Started With Ksh600, Built A Multimillion Empire: Success Story Of Kaki Poultry Farm

Geoffrey Kago’s poultry farm, Kaki Village Enterprises currently stands at a value more than Ksh10 million. It can easily pass as an enterprise that started with a firm footing considering the success that the 36-year old has had in poultry farming. But far from what it is now, the success story of Kaki Village Enterprises is one of gradual growth fueled by a passion and innovation.

How did he start?

Geoffrey Kago started the chicken farming activities that grew into Kaki Village Enterprises in 2002, with an initial capital of just sh600. His passion for poultry farming, however, is something he had since he was very young. He bought his first chicken from his mother in 1985 for sh20 when he was only a standard 4 kid. He says that he was inspired by Nelson Muguku, the legendary poultry farmer in Kenya who has made billions from the business.

From that one chicken he bought from his mother, Geoffrey made such an income that he never had to rely on his parents for upkeep or even school fees. It was an exotic breed, the Transylvania Naked Neck, which has no feathers on the neck. This breed of chicken breeds very fast, which is the reason why he chose it. From it, he was able to breed about 200 chickens in a year, which he sold locally for a good profit.

Money, profit, independence and satisfaction

The business was doing so well that Kago was able to save enough money to pay for his high school education from form two through to form four, at Nyeri High School. “I loved the sense of ownership,” Kago says with an obvious satisfaction from the independence he got from rearing chicken at such a young age.

His innovations in poultry farming

As a young chicken farmer, Kago had known the problems that came with traditional hatching. This drove him to conceptualize an electric incubator while in high school. The school natured his interests and innovations in poultry farming and in while he was in form two, he developed the incubator which won him first place in science congress at the district level and second place at the National level.

After high school, he worked as a carpenter and did several other businesses that enabled him to raise the sh600 that he used to make his first commercial electric incubator. That formed the beginning of Kaki Village Enterprises. In addition to making commercial electric incubators, Kago started making Candlers for checking eggs’ fertility and training farmers in the basics of poultry farming and chick hatching.

He now has 3 branches, also rearing ostriches, quails, ducks and guinea fowls.

Since he started practicing poultry farming as a business, Geoffrey Kago has been able to expand his enterprise into three branches. He has a hatchery in Eldoret where he also develops incubators for sale.

His five acre poultry farm is in Laikipia and it is there that he also conducts training for upcoming poultry farmers in Kenya. The farm is more of a nature center where he demonstrates other forms of poultry farming apart from chicken rearing. He has kept some rarely bred birds such as ostriches, quails, ducks and guinea fowls. He charges sh2500 per head for training.

He established his third branch at Gitaru, along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway to bring his business close to the capital, where he has access to a larger market. On this branch, he has about 200 ‘Kienyeji’ chickens, 1000 quails, six ostriches, 60 guinea fowl, 30 turkeys and 10 geese on just half an acre of land.

Kago says rearing other birds other than chicken can be more profitable than sticking by the traditional poultry farming practices. He argues that, for instance, guinea fowls are grazers and quails consume a tenth of what chicken would require for feeds. These breeds are also more resistant to diseases compared to chickens. One would require a license from Kenya Wildlife Services for them to breed such birds as quails, geese and ostriches. Kago says that there are quite a number of farmers that have these licenses but none of them is yet meeting the market demands.

Kaki Village Enterprises has now diversified into the production of milling machines and feed mixers. He says that farmers can use such machines to produce high quality feeds for their livestock right at their farms. The machines cost about sh600,000. Some of the stakeholders that have bought his innovations include the Ministry of Agriculture, KARI, Africa Medical Research Fund and several NGOs involved in poverty alleviation projects in Kenya.

Why Is Quail Farming In Kenya The Talk Of The Town: Distinguishing Truth From Hype

Quail farming in Kenya; everyone seems to talk about this new business in town. I can bet this is not the first time you are reading about it. So have we, Kenyan farmers, found some hidden treasure or is the whole thing just mere hype? Let’s start by talking money; after all, that is what we got to make at the end of the day.

The demand vs supply trick

Quail farming in Kenya is a very new venture for poultry farmers in this country. Before 2013, quite a few people had been keeping quails but it is only in this year that the practice attracted serious farmers who started raring the small birds on a commercial basis. This coincided perfectly with a period during which Kenyans are becoming more aware of the benefits of healthy eating and have madly started looking for healthy supplements. We will get to the health benefits of quail eggs later: I just wanted you to relate the two facts to see a large and rapidly expanding market and the very small supply. This, in my view, is the greatest advantage that those already in quail farming are enjoying.

The cost vs profits of quail farming in Kenya

Let us do a comparative analysis between ordinary chicken raring and quail farming in Kenya:

Housing: In a cage measuring 4x2.5x1.5 feet, you can comfortably keep 50 quails. Such a space would house no more than half the number in case of chicken farming. Ask any commercial poultry farmer in Kenya and they will tell you that space is money.

Veterinary costs and risk of loss due to diseases: I have talked to many poultry farmers in Kenya and the one thing they dread the most is disease. With quail farming, you need no vaccinations, no medicines and you have almost no worry over the risk of losing your birds to diseases. Good deal, huh? And that’s no hype: these birds are wild, remember?

Feeding: I remember reading the story of Lelgut Dairy Farm and the owner was joking that if you start dairy farming in Kenya without a clear source of feeds, your will cook ugali for your cows, LOL! It is no different when it comes to poultry farming. This is where the real cost is. A mature chicken layer, when well fed, consumes 150 grams per day on average. A mature, laying quail, on the other hand, will only require 20 grams of the same feed.

Let’s now do some simple money calculations for quail farming in Kenya. Suppose you have 1000 quails. You will need 20kg (20g x 1000) of layers mash every day. That will cost you at most Ksh.600 (20kg x sh30). Quails are very good layers; each bird can give you up to 330 eggs per year for the first two years. That is to say they lay at a rate of about 90%. Thus, with 1000 quails, let’s expect 900 eggs each day. Now the best deal is that due to the great demand and little supply of quail eggs, fertilized ones are currently being sold at Ksh.80 each. That’s no hype too! Just go to a supermarket stocking quail eggs and come tell us what you find out. So we have Ksh.72,000 in sales per day. Minus our feeding costs of Ksh.600 and any other running costs that definitely won’t go beyond Ksh.1000 per day, you have a clean Ksh70,000 profit per day. Sounds too good to be true, huh? But there, you have the facts.

This is a hidden treasure, quail farming in Kenya is no talk of the town for nothing. Let’s get to it and make the cash. If you have any questions, you can always drop me an email at enthiga@gmail.com. We are currently doing training for farmer who want to go into this business and offering all the technical support you need to get started. 

Take it up and let's meet at the millionaires' club. 

Quail Farming Business In Kenya Gets A Huge Boost From Consumers And Neighbouring Countries

In the course of my consultancy work, aspiring quail farmers in Kenya have been asking one very crucial question: “What happens to the quail business when many farmers start producing and no one is buying breeding birds anymore?” Now I have some good news. It was just recently that The Nairobian daily newspaper published an article that enlightened us on how people with low libido can be helped by eating quail eggs. In Have a low libido?Eat quail eggs!, The Nairobian confirms that experts agree to the fact that quail eggs help improve “slow-punctured libido”. I have also met a lady who stopped using anti-histamines a few months into taking quail eggs.

Besides the now confirmed medicinal value of quail eggs, this has become a delicacy that most people, especially in Nairobi, love to have for breakfast. The trend is exciting me as I have now started seeing the consumer market for the quail farming business in Kenya expanding. I was so surprised that even large and reputable supermarkets such as Uchumi are not able to meet the demand for consumers.

But what excited me the most are the emails that I have got from outside Kenya. There is a lady from Zimbabwe who expressed a great interest in the business and actually wants to be the pioneer of quail farming business in Zimbabwe. I can only imagine what an opportunity this will be for the million-minded Kenyan entrepreneurs who do not hesitate to hit new grounds wherever their products can be bought.

Uganda and Tanzania have already started doing the business and most of the people that contact me for consultancy services confirm that they bought their birds in Kenya. The fertilized eggs production part of the quail business has received the greatest boost as the people outside Kenya prefer buying these eggs to hatch their chicks rather than carrying live birds all the way. It’s no wonder the price of fertilized quail eggs has shot beyond the Ksh.100 mark.

By the way, have you checked the prices for day-old quail chicks lately? I got a shock when a friend of mind called me to his new quail farm in Githunguri. He has very healthy chicks in a huge brooder and I was interested to know his source. He had bought them from a farmer all the way from Nyeri and paid Ksh.500 for each chick. Kenyans, let’s take this opportunity and make the millions; let’s also focus on the consumer market for eventually, this is what will sustain the business.

As always, do not hesitate to email me at enthiga@gmail.com whenever you have any questions regarding quail keeping in Kenya. I am glad to receive enquiries from other countries and do my best to help all to the best of my ability. Cheers and let’s meet at the millionaires’ club. 

How To Get Ahead Of The Hype In The Million-Dollar Quail Business

I had foreseen that the prices of quails and their eggs would still go up as the hype intensifies but I had not, in my wildest imaginations, thought that quail eggs would hit the 100 bob mark! Now I got the greatest shock just yesterday as I travelled back to Naivasha from meeting some aspiring farmers in Nairobi. I sat next to a lady who talked about buying fertilized quail eggs at 250 shillings each. Honestly, that lady was seriously exploited.

While I have been encouraging farmers to get into this business and take advantage of the current hype, I agree with one friend whose comment I saw on our Quail Farmers Kenya Facebook group. He brought out a very important issue; currently, we are all focused on producing quails and quail eggs to sell to farmers at exorbitant prices while no one cares about the consumer market. Have we really thought about what would happen to our products when we have enough farmers all producing and no new farmer to sell quail chicks and fertilized eggs to?

So how do we get ahead of the hype and secure a future for this million-dollar business?

While we produce for the farmers and enjoy the huge profits, let us not starve the consumer market since that is where we will all turn to in the near future. While most people are focused on taking advantage of the hype around the quail business, a few future-focused individuals are busy creating a brand for themselves. They are taking advantage the shift in in the business to take care of the forgotten consumers.

Just the other day, someone posted a very important observation; they had gone to Nakumatt Supermarket in search of quail eggs and got only a promise that the eggs will be available in about a week’s time. The supermarket sells each egg at about 30 bob meaning that they would be willing to buy them at 20 bob from farmers. 20 shillings per egg is sure a very good deal that still gives you a huge profit. Don’t you think it would be wiser to produce for this steady market, make a name and a reputation for yourself, from which you will profit long after the mad rush dies off?

And the best idea so far…

The QFAK! I must say I just love the vision some of the upcoming quail farming millionaires have and the best so that seeks to secure the future of the business is the idea of registering a Quail Farmers Association in Kenya. The first meeting for the vision bearers and those supporting the idea will be held on 16^th November 2013 at Uhuru Park at 2:00 pm. For those who want to see our business live on, this is one idea we must uphold. The association will seek to bring together all the quail farmers in Kenya and seek new markets for our products, especially abroad. I bet we all need to support this as we make our way up to the millionaires’ club.