Private farm opens modern hatchery in Enugu

A modern hatchery has been established by Sunchi Integrated Farms in Enugu to supply Day Old Chicks to poultry farmers in the state.

Alfred Eneh, chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Enugu state chapter described the establishment of  the hatchery as a saviour to poultry farming in the state. Speaking to Businessday after a one-day consultative forum organised by Sunchi Farms in collaboration with the Enugu state ministry of agriculture, commerce and industry, Eneh said the hatchery came at a time poultry farmers in the state were closing shops as a result of difficulties encountered in getting day old chicks.

“The reason many of our farmers particularly those in the poultry sector were planning to close shop was as a result of casualties and mortality of birds coming from far distance to the state,” Eneh explained.

He said that with the establishment of the modern hatchery in Enugu the casualties and mortality rate would decrease and  more people would be encouraged to go into poultry business. Also Jacob Okeke, a poultry farmer told Businessday that the major problem facing the poultry farmers is the survival of the day old birds from the point where they were produced to the farm. Okeke who is also president of the disabled farmers multi purpose cooperative society, an organisation geared towards empowering persons with disability through agricultural ventures, said, “We encounter a lot of casualties and high mortality rate transporting day old chicks from either Ibadan or Ondo to Enugu including transportation cost”.

Earlier, the executive chairman of Sunchi Farms Sunny Ezeobiorah in an address said that the forum was an opportunity to raise awareness, interact with each other and in so doing ensure a success story of rendering the much needed support and getting patronage,

He promised that through the forum, poultry farmers in Enugu state in particular and the South east in general will heave a sigh of relief considering the vigorous pains in going to the southwest to get day old chicks to rear.

He said that the Integrated Farm was in line with the federal government’s agricultural transformation agenda towards providing jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in Enugu state.

By: Regis Anukwuoji