How to Start a Profitable Poultry Farming Business

Are you looking forward to starting a poultry farming business? The poultry farming business can be done from both your backyard as well as medium and largely integrated contract farming business. Read this post to know why and how to start your own poultry farming business.

Poultry farming worldwide has transformed into a techno-commercial industry from the status of backyard farming for three decades. Poultry farming is the fastest-growing sector of agriculture and farming businesses globally.

The annual growth rate is 8-10% in egg and 12-15% in the broiler industry. Because of the increasing population and worldwide demand for food protein, people are now beginning to realize the potential of providing food protein as a basic need.

10 Steps to Start Poultry Farming Business

Here are the basic steps you need to follow to start a profitable poultry farm:

1. Choose a Niche for your Poultry Farming Business

This is the very first step to consider while starting your poultry farming business. There are enterprises that run poultry farming in multiple locations catering to different sectors. However, if you are a beginner and starting with a tight budget, selecting a single sector is well advised. The popular verticals which are doing good business are the following:

• Chicken Breeding/ Hatchery
• Meat Production/Broilers Breeding
• Egg Production/ Layers of Breeding
• Poultry Feed Production

Another important aspect is choosing birds. If you are a newbie, start with not more than two or three types of birds. It is seen worldwide, starters concentrate on domestic fowls or chickens for broilers and layers. You have other options too like turkey, duck, goose, quail, pigeons, guinea fowl, etc.

2. Different Methods of Poultry Farming

Worldwatch Institute described that “about 74% of total poultry meat and 68% of total poultry eggs produced from intensive poultry farming method”. The intensive poultry farming method is a highly efficient system that saves, land, feed, labor, and other resources and increases production.

In this system, the poultry farming environment is fully controlled by the farmer. So, it ensures continuous production throughout the year in any environment and season. Here we put some methods of profitable commercial Layer Poultry Farming and Broiler Poultry Farming.

a) Deep Litter Poultry Farming

In the deep litter system, the pellets are placed on a bare floor that has been covered with sawdust.
Careful consideration is given to the method applied to feed the birds. Removing the dropping usually poses no problem. You can either pack off the entire sawdust with the dropping or cover the dropping with fresh sawdust. Normally, the day-old chicks are housed using the

You can either pack off the entire sawdust with the dropping or cover the dropping with fresh sawdust. Normally, the day-old chicks are housed using the brooder method before they grow up. They can be transferred to the battery cage when they approach their egg-laying period or left on the deep litter floor.

b) Battery Cage Poultry Farming

The battery cage housing allows for the droppings to fall on a separate platform directly under the cage. It is uniquely constructed to make feeding and drinking quite easy for the birds. The birds feed on a marsh, which has been properly compounded. The marsh should be given according to an expert’s advice.

In some cases, inappropriate feeding can lead to excess fat, which can result in mortality. Furthermore, defective feeding can lead to low egg production. In fact, it has been experienced in the past where a whole stock of birds produced no egg, due to wrong feeding.

3. Learn the Poultry Farming Skills

Technologies training including theoretical and practical both are essential for the poultry farming business especially when you are directly dealing with livestock. You need to be very careful about the feed, disease, and the entire farm environment. Getting properly trained before starting a poultry farming business is highly advised.

Getting properly trained before starting a poultry farming business is highly advised.  Going into poultry farming without practical knowledge of the venture is a direct invitation to failure.

It is very important for the would-be entrepreneur to know how to keep and maintain the chicken or birds in an acceptable manner.

a) Get Trained in Poultry Management Techniques

You should be a qualified person with a wealth of experience in poultry management. The management of the farm must be able to plan ahead of its activities and be able to compare actual performance with the drawn plan in order to apply control measures whenever a deviation from the original plan is observed.

It must not be armchair management that cares less about what may be happening to the birds at any given time. The management should be sensitive to the conditions on the farm and be in firm control of all situations.

b) Take Care of Birds

It is essential to create systems to take good care of your birds. Learn more about various types of poultry diseases, symptoms, and treatments. Vaccinate the birds timely. Provide them with nutritious feed and clean water. Clean their house on a regular basis.

One of the critical factors that account for the success or failure of poultry farming is the way the health of the birds is handled. To ensure the continuous production of chicken and eggs, your chickens should be regularly checked by veterinarians to ensure their health.

If the source of the day-old chicks or the foundation stick is compromised, or the necessary drugs are not properly administrated, poultry farming can turn into a nightmare.

4. Create a Poultry Farming Business Plan

Developing an effective business plan is the most important part of your operation in poultry farming. The poultry industry is a broad niche and it has many sub-sectors like egg production, meat production, and hatchery.

You will need to choose your area of specialization according to capital investment and technical know-how. It is without saying, the basic consideration should be financial viability and technical feasibility.

You will need to have a detailed project report. Some of the topics that must be addressed are the following:

• How much area of land is required for the setup?
• What would be the investment?
• What kind of birds are you going to choose?
• What type of equipment is required?
• How are you going to market the products?

5. Choose a Proper Location

Firstly, you must check with the local authority if there are any guidelines with regard to running a poultry-rearing business in the concerned area. Remember, your farming unit is going to throw a lot of bad smells in the nearby area. Hence, it is advised not to choose a location in an area with a dense population.

Additionally, you also need to check the transportation cost related to buying and selling the product. The location should not be far from the immediate market that you are targetting to sell your production. Hence, as per your budget, choose a location that best analyses the aspects mentioned above.

6. Arrange Finance

The poultry farming business requires considerable investment to start. If you don’t have the required fund, apply for business loans. A well-documented business plan comes in handy if you are looking for funding from financial institutions.

The amount of financial requirement will largely depend on the scale of your poultry farming unit. If you have sufficient land in your backyard, you can start from there also and thereby reducing considerable costs.

Also remember, there is also a significant working capital cost of running a poultry farming unit. A prudent poultry farmer must keep a close watch over the cost of running the farm. You must avoid unnecessary spending, which tends to eat away his profit.

The labor feeds, drugs, and other input costs must be in line with standard farm requirements, otherwise, such expenses should be ignored. All forms of wasteful spending must be eliminated, no matter how insignificant the amount may seem to the management.

7. Make Your Poultry Farming Business Legal

Another important is to comply with regulations. You have to make sure that the operations of your farm and the treatment of your chickens comply with regulations. Check your local government agencies regulating laws and regulations for poultry farms.

You need to form a proper business structure under which the poultry farming business will be run. Different countries and states have various options for forming your company. For example, if you are from the United States, forming an LLC is a better choice as gives a lot of benefits for a start-up business owner.

There are many external and internal issues like extreme weather and disease that could lead to significant poultry losses. So it is important to protect the investment you have made in your poultry operation with the right insurance solution.

8. Hire Effective Manpower

The poultry farming business is not a one-man operating business. You need qualified and experienced manpower related to the production department in running a successful poultry farming business. You also need back-office kinds of staff along with a Manager who will supervise all the operations. So, a carefully planned recruitment hiring plan will save more cost than expenditure.

9. Explore Poultry Farming Market Opportunities

The market for poultry products is quite enormous. You should be able to identify both the immediate and potential markets for the products before starting the business otherwise the management might not be able to sell the products at the appropriate time. Thorough research of the market beforehand will be of great value in running a profitable business.

You need to find ways to reach your customers and this would be done by employing suitable marketing techniques. Before you start the business, you should really consider the marketing strategy that you would use to break into the market.

10. Promote your Poultry Farming Business

If you are starting as a beginner with a low start-up cost, you need to identify low-cost ways of promoting your poultry farming products and produce. First and foremost, choose a catchy name for your poultry farming unit. In addition, don’t forget to check whether a relevant domain name is available or not as having a website is a must for any business in the present day.

The next thing you must do is create a logo related to your business. This logo will help customers to identify you and your business easily. When the logo is done, create a business card, brochure and create social media profiles, and spread your company brand.

Benefits of Commercial PoultryFarming

The commercial poultry farming business has several benefits. Size does not matter, being small has its own advantages.

• The major benefit of the poultry farming business is that it does not require huge capital to start with.
• Poultry farming does not require huge space. Yes, it requires space. You can also raise birds in your own backyard with one or numerous coops or cages.
• The ROI of commercial poultry farming is very high. Within a very short period profit can be generated.
• Almost all types of poultry birds are domestic. You will not need to obtain any major licenses.
• The broiler’s intake of feed is comparatively very low while it produces the maximum possible amount of food.
• Marketing is very simple. Apart from fresh chicken, you can also establish a chicken processing unit.
• Poultry farming is a continuous source of income. It is not seasonal and can produce income for the entire year. While chickens lay eggs between 6 to 8 months, broilers take only 6 to 10 weeks to bring in income.
• Poultry droppings are rich in nitrogen and organic material and hence, are considered valuable as fertilizers.
• Almost all banks and financial institution approves loan for commercial poultry farming project.

Keep up with records and accounting of your business and operation so that you can always be sure you are making money or not. The normal incubation period of the birds is 21 days and full maturity is reached between 20-24 weeks. The payback period of a poultry farming business is between 3-4 years.

Summing Up:

Many countries have adopted a poultry farming business as a micro, small or medium enterprise with women empowerment as a model for rural economic sustainability. Poultry farming includes the activity of raising various types of domestic birds commercially for the purpose of meat, eggs, and feather production. The most common and widely raised poultry birds are chickens.

Furthermore, the chickens that are raised for eggs are called layer chickens, and the chickens that are raised for meat production are called broiler chickens. The UK and the USA consume more meat and eggs of chicken than any other country in the world. Among the livestock ventures, commercial poultry farming not only requires less capital investment to start but also ensures quick profit returns.