Written by; DR. Nampanzira Dorothy Kalule (PhD);  Lecturer, department of livestock and industrial resources, Makerere University. [email protected]

Edited by Ms. Nampijja Zaina Ssessanga.

In Uganda over 70% of the population are youth of whom over 77% are unemployed. Youth are more interested in short term business ventures under which most poultry business ideas fall. The poultry sector presents several business opportunities many of which are untapped and those that are tapped have not been fully exploited. These business ideas can be taken up by all categories of people men women, youth and people with disabilities. Therefore, the ideas can have a great contribution to the reduction of unemployment rates in the country.

Business means, exchange for profit. In the market, we take two things

1. Product
2. Service.

Whatever you choose to take to the market, you should exchange it at a profit!

When it comes to the poultry sector in Uganda, we have highlighted 30 ideas that we can turn into money and make a profit. In this article, we divide these ideas into two parts.

1. The ideas that provide a product to the market,
2. The ideas that provide a service to the market.

Poultry Business ideas that provide a product to the market

1. Rear parent stock and produce fertilized eggs and hatch day old chic . You could choose to take your fertilized eggs to the hatchery and hatch them into chicks. In this case you make more profits compared to the person who sales the fertilized eggs. However, the process of hatching the eggs presents its own challenges which but they can however be overcome with some training and experience. In this case our product is the day old chick.
2. Buy fertilized eggs and re-sale them. You could buy fertilized eggs from the producers and re-sale them at a profit. Take care to buy only when you have a ready market to sale them. Otherwise, these cannot be stored for long. You can risk losing them all. In this case our product is still the fertilized egg
3. Rear parent stock and produce fertilized eggs

This could be broiler parent stock, layer parent stock or local chickens parent stock. If you have no hatchery, you could choose to sale the fertilized eggs. In this case our product is the fertilized eggs.

4. Buy fertilized eggs, Hatch and sale day old chicks

In this case, you buy the fertilized eggs and take them to hatchery. After 21 days, you sale day old chicks. This is more profitable compared to reselling the fertilized eggs. In this case our product is the day old chick

5. Buy day old chicks from producers and sale to farmers

In this case, you buy day old chicks from the breeders and you resell them to the farmers at a profit. You are essentially a middle man. In some cases, the farmers never get to know the breeders but only know the person/ company that supplies them. Take care that the farmers pay for the chicks in advance, or make commitment to taking the chicks. The product in this case is the day old chick.

6. Buy day old broiler chicks and raise them and sale as mature live birds

Here the farmers buy the day old birds and rear them for 4 – 6weeks and sale them as mature birds. This requires high capital input. You will need to buy the chicks, build houses, feeders, drinkers, feeds among others. The farmer needs to manage them appropriately in order to get a profit.

7. Own a poultry meat butcher/ sales point

You could own a butcher where people buy chicken in kilograms, similar to beef. In this case you can buy slaughtered chicken, and either sell portions say wings, thighs, gizzards, or sell the un partitioned chicken. These are priced according to weight.

8. Buy day old layer birds and raise them to maturity. Sale eggs produced by the birds

Here the farmers buy day old chicks and raise them to maturity until they can lay eggs. The hens can lay eggs for over 1.5 year.

9. Brooding:

Here you will buy day old chicks and raise them for 2 weeks for broilers or 4 weeks for layers and then sale to farmers at a profit. Brooding is a very sensitive stage in poultry production, if not done with care, farmers can lose up to 20% of the birds in the brooder.  Many farmers are afraid to deal with day old chicks and they would rather buy those that have passed the brooding stage. This is very common with poultry types that are bought in small quantities like kuroilers in that brooding the few birds will be so costly to farmers and is currently picking for layers and broilers. Make sure to only brood chicks on order such that you have a sure market.

This can go to services as well, some farmers buy their chicks and you brood for them and they incur all the costs. This case you provide the brooding service to the farmers.

10. Buy eggs from farmers and make an egg store where others can find and sale

In this case you make a one stop egg Centre/ shop where people could buy.  Your clients will include; supermarkets, schools, exporters of eggs, wholesalers, household consumers, friends, retailers; etc.

11. Buy off layers/ broilers/ local chickens from farmers and sale whole birds

You buy the off layers from the farmers and resell them at a profit. You could resell as whole birds at a store.

12. Buy whole birds broilers/ layers/ local chickens and dress them, then sale to supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, friends, etc. you could sale as a whole dressed bird or in parts.
13. Buy poultry manure.

You can resell this manure to crop farmers to be used as manure. It could also be sold to fish farmers, pig farmers who process it and use it as an animal feed ingredient.

14. Buy poultry manure, process it and make pig feeds, fish feeds

You could process the manure yourself and make feed ingredients and sale to the fish and pig farmers as a feed, as opposed to selling it as manure.

15. Poultry feed store of feed mill

You can open up a poultry feed store or a feed mill. In both cases you will sale poultry feeds or feed ingredients to the poultry farmers. This is a good venture especially if you can guarantee quality of your product.

16. Poultry drug shop

If you are a veterinary doctor or animal production personnel, you could open up a drug shop with permission from National drug authority and sell Poultry drugs to the farmers. Ensure to site it properly and also treat rightly if you are to expand your client base.

17. Buy poultry feed ingredients in bulk from farmers (e.g. maize, soya), fish or from the industries as a byproduct (maize bran, cotton seed cake, sunflower) and sale to the feed millers(P)
18. Rear local chickens

You could specialize in rearing local chickens and selling to people who prefer local chicken to exotic chicken. These usually go for higher prices at the market. You can sale as whole birds or you can dress and sell as dressed chicken either whole or in parts

19. Sale local chicken’s eggs

Some people prefer local chicken eggs to exotic ones. You could opt to deal in these local chicken’s eggs. You could resell to traders or to end users.

20. Sale poultry equipment. You can open a poultry equipment store. In here you could sell items like, feeders and drinkers of different sizes, egg trays, day old packaging boxes etc. The product you bring to the market are the different equipment in your store

Poultry Business ideas that provide a service to the market

21. Own or hire a hatchery and provide hatching services

You can provide a hatching service to the people who have fertilized eggs. Not everyone who has parent stock owns a hatchery. Many opt to hire hatching services. In this case every egg brought into the hatchery for hatching is charged a hatching fee on entry. Here an income is earned from hatching fees.

22. Own a poultry abattoir,

 similar to cattle, goats. Here you earn from the service offered (standard Slaughter of chicken, Halal), You could use blood to make blood meal, offals to sale to pig farmers. Essentially, you earn from the slaughtering service offered.

23. Build poultry production houses and hire out to farmers who don’t have space

If you have some land, you could build standard poultry houses and rent them out to farmers who lack poultry houses. In this case you earn rental income. However, ensure that there is tight security as many farmers are kicked out of business due to theft.

24. Advisory services

You earn from visiting farmers and offering technical advice in regards to nutrition, health and the general management. Here the farmer pays for the technical service offered

25. Veterinary services. Poultry just like other livestock are affected by a number of diseases which require a technical personnel to diagnose and make prescriptions and at times go ahead and treat. Some of these diseases can be controlled through vaccination and hygiene.
26. Making business plans for people wanting to join the poultry as a business

One can specialize in making business plans for the farmers who want to join the poultry sector. You are paid for the service offered- making the business plan. Ensure to make a professionally and useable business plan such that you can get clients through referrals.

27. Transport services for day old chicks, mature birds, poultry feed

If you have a truck or pick up, you could venture in transporting chickens from farms to markets or you could transport day old chicks from the sales points to the farms.

28. Sales person, One can serve as a sales person for breeder companies and sale chicks at a commission. You could be a sales person for the prominent breeding companies. In this case you get a commission for every chick sold. You do not need lots of capital to be a sales person. Actually you could do this to build up your own capital to venture in other poultry business ventures.  You could also do brokering, linking buyers to sellers at a profit. In this case you can become a broker for poultry products like chickens, eggs, manure. You link the sellers to the buyers at a fee
29. Refrigeration services for the dressed chicken.

You can own deep freezers, that preserve dressed chickens for up to 6 months. In this case, the farmers that are stranded with ready birds and don’t have ready market for them, could hire space and keep their birds in the freezers at a fee. The farmers can then pick their chickens as the market presents. The freezers can even act as selling points to the clients who want frozen chicken.

30. Constructing poultry houses.

You can have a skill in building standard poultry houses. So you build your customer base with time for as long as quality and efficiency are guaranteed.