Benefits of raising chickens in storey buildings

Farms in Nigeria that can afford the initial investment of a one-storey building for raising chickens are safeguarding the health of their birds, reducing drudgery and earning additional income from selling the chickens droppings on large scale.

The floor of the upper floor is built to have parallel rectangular spaces and the battery cages in which the chickens are housed on this top floor are arranged in such a way that the chicken droppings or faeces pass through the spaces to the ground floor.

The droppings would not be cleared and disposed until after one whole year, noteworthy is that one of the main challenges and complaints of farm hands in the country is the tediousness of having to clear droppings regularly from the poultry pen.

The droppings accumulate on the ground floor which has no walls but supporting pillars so that the ventilation is much, preventing excessive microbial actions, foul odour and also the distance between the ground floor and top floor prevents the birds from getting disease infections from the accumulated droppings.

At the end of the laying cycle of the birds, about a year later when the layers have been removed from the upper floor, the farm sell the droppings as manure to large scale vegetable farms, mostly those that grow vegetables for export.

One of such farms that do this is Animal Care Farm in Ogun state, Southwest Nigeria which also conducts training for poultry farmers on its farming techniques.

The demand for poultry birds in Nigeria particularly chickens can only go up. There are growing health concerns about imported frozen chickens smuggled in through the country’s borders. But one main challenge about domestically produced chickens which though very desirable is the relatively higher prices due to the higher cost of production that local producers face. Another is the fact that the electricity supply in the country is still unreliable such that many producers and dealers in chickens still shy away from slaughtering, dressing and freezing of chickens to be sold whenever in demand.  Most professionals prefer to have chickens already dressed, cut and ready to cook.

In recent months however, businesspeople are taking advantage of mobile telephones and growing concerns over the contraband poultry products smuggled daily into the country to run thriving businesses selling freshly-slaughtered chickens.

In some cases, dealers situate kiosks with live chickens near residential areas. Customers either stop by, choose the chickens they want and wait for about 10 minutes for the chickens to get slaughtered and dressed.

In some cases, the customers make phone calls and make orders, stating the time they would pick up the slaughtered and dressed chickens or if they want the chicken(s) delivered to them. These neighbourhood live chicken businesses are taking over from direct sales of dressed chickens by farms to customers.

OLUYINKA ALAWODE