An over enthusiastic Nigerian who rushes headlong into poultry business in which he has little or no information or experience will surely burn his fingers. Many starters in the business are dreamers who invest first based on overrated ideas without first evaluating and analyzing their plans.
When i went into chicken farming many years ago, i was a victim of over enthusiasm which burned my fingers badly. My first investment was a disaster that cost me a loss of a million naira within months. I learned the hard way.

Poultry business especially the layers chicken aspect for egg production is generally viewed as a high risk business by many Nigerians who seem to be scared of it. One Nigerian said that it is a business that can lift one up and can also smash him flat on the ground.

It is a good business that has a large market demand for its products especially eggs. A layers chicken farmer will definitely sell his eggs within a few days…that is sure. He will have customers seeking for more eggs than he can supply to them.

However, many chicken farmers are complaining about the high cost of chicken feeds which adversely affects the business bottom line. Some have been frustrated and have closed down their farms. Some see the business as a bad business not worth investing in. One woman said that there is too much work than money in the business which makes it a bad business.

Is it still a profitable business worth investing in?

That is the question an intending investor must find concrete answers to before throwing in his money. The usual unfortunate problem is that many Nigerians blindly jump into a business simply because someone is doing it, without first analyzing its viability. They jump in based on what someone said without seeing the figures to be sure.

The major overhead in the business is the chicken feeds. There are factory finished feeds which many farmers complain about being too costly which impacts negatively on their bottom line. These feeds are top range quality produced by multinational companies or conglomerates such as Top Feeds, Boar Feeds, Livestock Feeds and others. Another feeding option is where the farmer assembles various feed ingredients and does self-milling using a prescribed formulation ratio.

How would a small farmer do his analysis to assess the profitability of the business before spending his money to set up structures? First, it is necessary to do a comparison of feeding costs by comparing factory finished feeds with self-milling feed option to know if there are any significant cost savings. Secondly, it is essential to assess the overall profitability by comparing projected egg revenues to the projected expenses to see if there are any profits and how significant the profit margins can be.

For small farmers,i have done a short report based on comparing using both factory finished feeds self-milling option based on market prices as at March 8, 2018. This report indicates the costs of feeding 500 layers chickens from day old age through the brooding phase, the grower phase and the egg production phase, using factory finished feeds and the self-milled feeding option showing the potential cost savings between the two options.

The second part of the report assesses the overall profitability of a 500 layers chicken farm taking note of the projected egg revenues and the projected expenses. The report indicates how the egg production is estimated to give realistic egg production figures as well as the projected expenses. Then the farmer must know how to manage certain expenses to keep them to the barest minimum.
The conclusion is that the business is still profitable and worth investing in, in present day Nigeria.
John Ayodele
http://www.johnayodele.wordpress.com