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. 

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!