If there’s one thing Nigerians love, it’s chickens. With dozens of ways to prepare their meat and eggs in our various homes, it’s no wonder that when choosing a domestic fowl to raise as a poultry farmer, most prefer to start with chickens. 

Besides their high demand, chickens are surprisingly easy to raise, as you’ll soon find out.

All you need is capital to start with and a bit of patience, and you could see yourself making millions of naira within a couple of months.

Here’s how to get started:

Table of Contents

• Step 1 – Find some land
• Step 2 – Build them a home
• Step 3 – Choose your breed
• How much does it cost to get started?
• Important things to remember
• How much can you make from poultry farming?

Step 1 – Find some land

Choosing land to start your farm is heavily dependent on your capital. The more money you have when starting, the more land you should get to raise more chickens. However, if you’re just starting, nothing stops you from starting a farm in your home’s backyard. 

Step 2 – Build them a home

Chickens aren’t the smartest animals, and not giving them a home opens them to several problems. They could wander off, lay eggs in hard to find places, get stolen or be eaten by predators. To keep track of your chickens easy, build them a coop to grow and stay protected. 

Step 3 – Choose your breed

Bought as chicks that are only a day old, chickens come in 3 highly profitable breeds. We have:

1. Layers-female chickens raised only to lay eggs. They mature after 18-19 weeks. 
2. Broilers- male and female chickens raised for meat. They are fed high protein diets to help them fully mature in under 6 weeks.
3. Cockerels-male chickens raised to be larger and produce more meat. They mature after 6 long months but have special demand on the market.

Remember, these are three highly lucrative options. You must choose and specialize in raising one of these when first starting out. When you master the art of raising one breed, you can explore the other two.

How much does it cost to get started?

Let’s assume you want to start a farm with layers (chickens raised to lay eggs). You need to raise layers for 18 months before they start laying highly profitable eggs. 

1. To buy 500 chicks, you need N200,000
2. To feed 500 chicks for 18 months,  you need N4.9 million – N5.2 million
3. to house the 500 birds, you need at least 5 cages (100 birds per cage) which costs N450,000
4. To construct a pen for the chickens to roam, you need N1,500,000
5. For vaccination and medication, you need N200,000 – N260,000
6. Factor in the cost of land 

You can calculate how much it costs to start a poultry farm with all these taken into consideration. 

Important things to remember

1. Chickens need a balanced diet
2. Chickens have months where they don’t lay eggs 
3. Chickens are more valuable during holiday seasons

How much can you make from poultry farming?

A fully grown chicken goes for ₦2,000 – ₦4,500 depending on the size and weight. If you have 1,000 chickens, you can make a minimum of 2 million naira.

Chicken eggs sell at ₦2,300 a crate. A crate holds 30 eggs, and If you have 12,000 eggs in a month, you can make ₦920,000 a month!

Seeing just how profitable raising chickens is. Would you like to become a poultry farmer?