Monday, 25 July 2016
Start small with geese farming
Ever thought you can make profit from geese farming?
Prince Arinze One-bunne, Chief Executive Officer, Jovanna Farms, Lagos, has been producing mini-livestock for more than five years. He encourages farmers to add mini-livestock to their integrated production system to meet increasing demand for food and nutritious meats.
One money spinner he has discovered is geese farming. This is because they are among the fastest-growing avian species commonly raised for meat.
Geese raising, he noted, can be incorporated into existing farming system to utilise farm waste products efficiently, hence providing small-scale farmers with a source of extra income and the much needed animal protein source for the family.
Describing geese farming as a trendy kind of “agribusiness”, Onebunne said intending farmers can start small with two males and three females while still holding down a full-time job elsewhere.
He said the birds have a large market with many end-products and uses.
Generally, the birds supply nutritious meat, huge eggs and rich fat for cooking, as well as feathers for bedding and clothing, which makes them particularly appropriate for providing farmers with a supplementary income. The meat is fatter than other poultry meats.
He said geese seem to be more resistant to diseases than other avian species.
Onebunne said he is making waves because of his will to innovate in the livestock industry by rearing different breeds. At Jovana Farms, breeding animals for therapy, such as geese, peacock, grasscutter and antelope is a wonderful way to explore this possibility, he added.
Geese are, however, the most rapid growing, having the longest commercial life. They are good foragers, reaching a marketable weight with little supplementary feeding and can practically raise themselves.
Onebunne said geese possess terrific eyesight, good memories, and raucous voices; attributes that make for excellent sentinels. “What most Nigerians don’t know is that geese are very cheap and easy to maintain and they provide animal protein as well as cash income. Your geese probably won’t make you affluent by laying about 60 eggs a year, but they can earn their keep through derived products that will surely bring in millions of naira.”
He advised young entrepreneurs to start with purebreds, crossbreds or rare breeds, which he sells at his Jovana Farms.
Onebunne said geese farming is a promising business for small farmers because they are very good layers.
Geese, he explained, are independent, larger than other poultry species and thus less vulnerable to predators.
When kept in small flocks and allowed to roam the farmyard or field, they are adept scavengers, requiring less attention than any other domestic bird. Geese adapt easily to captivity, and if small quantities of supplementary feed are provided in the evening they will even return home by themselves.
They can be raised on very small acreage, either as an independent operation or as an integrated piece with other farming ventures, such as a market garden or grazing ruminants. The size of operation, efficiencies, and time put into marketing are the primary things that will distinguish a successful commercial poultry.
For him, almost anyone can raise geese. In general, there is a very low overhead to get started (it can be done without buildings or large mechanical equipment.
Most successful farmers started small and grew their businesses.
Key issues are bedding, space, heat, access to water and feed and predator control. Feed may be purchased as ready-made ” starter” from the local farm store or mixed with a ration by local feed mill.
A clean set-up is the key to keeping them healthy. Feed generally contains corn, soymeal, sometimes oats or wheat, another protein source such as fish or crab meal, calcium and minerals.
Limiting factors for geese farming are that geese are not fully mature until they are two years.
Onebunne has a hatchery. He conducts farmer trainings. He also breeds other rarely bred birds such as ostriches, quails, ducks and guinea fowls.
His aim in rearing birds other than hens is to show their viability as alternative sources of meat and eggs.
When trained, he said, geese can serve as guards , protecting warehouses with their exceptional eyesight and wide field of vision. Combined with their strident voices, they make excellent guards against approaching strangers or predators since outsiders cannot calm them into silence.
According to him, chicken and turkey farmers keep geese to ward off poultry-eating predators.
If you really want to be a multi-billionaire, you cannot do it earning salaries. Dangote is not paid by anybody. Coscharis is not paid by anybody; they work for themselves. And in this clime there are so many persons that are working hard in spite of the situation we find ourselves. At JOVANA FARMS, we think that if we encourage the unemployed and farmers in activities that are very productive, those services that are required by even the oil companies, they will do much better. It is better to be in the agricultural sector because the potentials are here. The market is there too. So do not forget that the oil sector is employing few persons but the agricultural sector is going to provide a lot of opportunities and our strategies are pro-poor. So if you are talking of how many persons your intervention can pull at the same time; agriculture is just there for it.
In this fast paced world, people should get all the help they can in dealing with the sheer speed and harshness of everyday life. There have been a lot of ways discovered to cope with stress. Some watch movies all day during holiday; others listen to music, play and have fun with friends. While it may be true that all these are effective ways to cope with the everyday stress that we all are familiar to, there is still no denying the fact that activities involving nature remains the best practice. Breeding animals for therapy, such as geese, peacock, grasscutter and antelope is a wonderful way to explore this possibility.
Just like those who are passionate for gardening, people who have many years experience in keeping geese have always shared that the entire experience is a great therapy. From the moment they start laying eggs, up to the time the egg hatch, grow and become adults, there is something about geese that helps stressed out people to relax. So if you are among the millions of people who need a break from the world’s break neck speed, you should consider raising geese as your stress getaway.
Geese are, however, the most rapid growing, have the longest commercial life and are the hardiest of all domesticated bird. They are good foragers, reaching a marketable weight with little supplementary feeding and can practically raise themselves. Geese adapt easily to different climates, its not surprising that these robust waterfowl were probably one of the first animals domesticated by man. In fact, geese are the popular bird during Christmas time in Europe. It’s only in Africa that the raising of geese have not been exploited commercially as much as chickens or turkeys.
Geese possess terrific eyesight, good memories, and raucous voices; attributes that makes for excellent sentinels. What most Nigerians don’t know is that geese are very cheap and easy to maintain and they provide animal protein as well as cash income. Your geese probably won’t make you affluent by laying about sixty eggs a year, but they can earn their keep by supplying the following farm products and services that will surely bring in millions of naira:
(1) INFERTILE EGGS: Huge, good for catering, scrambling and baking, try marketing extras to bakery and fast food restaurants.
(2) MEAT: Higher protein contents, succulent, richer, palatable, and more tender than turkey and chicken. Provide a rich food source for an often-hungry populace
(3) FEATHERS/DOWN: Valuable for comfy pillows and light, insulating comforters and for other upholstery uses
(4) WEEDING/GRASS TRIMMING: Once used to weed a variety of crops, geese are again becoming popular weeders as organic method catch on (they fertilize the soil, too).
(5) TOURISM: Geese are animal of unique feature and this makes the animal tradable for tourist uses. The big versatile rare-waterfowl have been valued highly-even considered indispensable.
(6) SECURITY GUARD: Geese make ideal “watchdogs”, they are unbridable guard animals.
(7) FERTILIZED EGGS/BREEDING STOCK: If you raise purebreds, crossbreds or rare breeds, you can usually get a pretty good price for them, depending on your area of the country. At JOVANA FARMS, we have prolific breeds available for sale at N100,000 for 2-males and 3-females of 10-months old point-of-lay.
(8) PEST CONTROL: Chicken and turkey farmers keep geese to ward off poultry-eating predators. Rural dwellers like the way they gobble down diseases-carrying ticks, cockroaches, grasshoppers, and small snakes.
Geese farming is a trendy kind of “agribusiness”, intending farmers can start out small with 2-males and 3-females while still holding down a full-time job elsewhere. In many ways geese farming is the perfect moonlighting business that can generate huge income. The geese farming industry is still an underestimated type of poultry in Nigeria. But it has a large sustainable market for its many products and uses.
Prince Arinze One-bunne, Chief Executive Officer, Jovanna Farms, Lagos, has been producing mini-livestock for more than five years. He encourages farmers to add mini-livestock to their integrated production system to meet increasing demand for food and nutritious meats.
One money spinner he has discovered is geese farming. This is because they are among the fastest-growing avian species commonly raised for meat.
Geese raising, he noted, can be incorporated into existing farming system to utilise farm waste products efficiently, hence providing small-scale farmers with a source of extra income and the much needed animal protein source for the family.
Describing geese farming as a trendy kind of “agribusiness”, Onebunne said intending farmers can start small with two males and three females while still holding down a full-time job elsewhere.
Generally, the birds supply nutritious meat, huge eggs and rich fat for cooking, as well as feathers for bedding and clothing, which makes them particularly appropriate for providing farmers with a supplementary income. The meat is fatter than other poultry meats.
He said geese seem to be more resistant to diseases than other avian species.
Onebunne said he is making waves because of his will to innovate in the livestock industry by rearing different breeds. At Jovana Farms, breeding animals for therapy, such as geese, peacock, grasscutter and antelope is a wonderful way to explore this possibility, he added.
Geese are, however, the most rapid growing, having the longest commercial life. They are good foragers, reaching a marketable weight with little supplementary feeding and can practically raise themselves.
Onebunne said geese possess terrific eyesight, good memories, and raucous voices; attributes that make for excellent sentinels. “What most Nigerians don’t know is that geese are very cheap and easy to maintain and they provide animal protein as well as cash income. Your geese probably won’t make you affluent by laying about 60 eggs a year, but they can earn their keep through derived products that will surely bring in millions of naira.”
He advised young entrepreneurs to start with purebreds, crossbreds or rare breeds, which he sells at his Jovana Farms.
Onebunne said geese farming is a promising business for small farmers because they are very good layers.
Geese, he explained, are independent, larger than other poultry species and thus less vulnerable to predators.
When kept in small flocks and allowed to roam the farmyard or field, they are adept scavengers, requiring less attention than any other domestic bird. Geese adapt easily to captivity, and if small quantities of supplementary feed are provided in the evening they will even return home by themselves.
They can be raised on very small acreage, either as an independent operation or as an integrated piece with other farming ventures, such as a market garden or grazing ruminants. The size of operation, efficiencies, and time put into marketing are the primary things that will distinguish a successful commercial poultry.
For him, almost anyone can raise geese. In general, there is a very low overhead to get started (it can be done without buildings or large mechanical equipment.
Most successful farmers started small and grew their businesses.
Key issues are bedding, space, heat, access to water and feed and predator control. Feed may be purchased as ready-made ” starter” from the local farm store or mixed with a ration by local feed mill.
A clean set-up is the key to keeping them healthy. Feed generally contains corn, soymeal, sometimes oats or wheat, another protein source such as fish or crab meal, calcium and minerals.
Limiting factors for geese farming are that geese are not fully mature until they are two years.
Onebunne has a hatchery. He conducts farmer trainings. He also breeds other rarely bred birds such as ostriches, quails, ducks and guinea fowls.
His aim in rearing birds other than hens is to show their viability as alternative sources of meat and eggs.
When trained, he said, geese can serve as guards , protecting warehouses with their exceptional eyesight and wide field of vision. Combined with their strident voices, they make excellent guards against approaching strangers or predators since outsiders cannot calm them into silence.
According to him, chicken and turkey farmers keep geese to ward off poultry-eating predators.
If you really want to be a multi-billionaire, you cannot do it earning salaries. Dangote is not paid by anybody. Coscharis is not paid by anybody; they work for themselves. And in this clime there are so many persons that are working hard in spite of the situation we find ourselves. At JOVANA FARMS, we think that if we encourage the unemployed and farmers in activities that are very productive, those services that are required by even the oil companies, they will do much better. It is better to be in the agricultural sector because the potentials are here. The market is there too. So do not forget that the oil sector is employing few persons but the agricultural sector is going to provide a lot of opportunities and our strategies are pro-poor. So if you are talking of how many persons your intervention can pull at the same time; agriculture is just there for it.
In this fast paced world, people should get all the help they can in dealing with the sheer speed and harshness of everyday life. There have been a lot of ways discovered to cope with stress. Some watch movies all day during holiday; others listen to music, play and have fun with friends. While it may be true that all these are effective ways to cope with the everyday stress that we all are familiar to, there is still no denying the fact that activities involving nature remains the best practice. Breeding animals for therapy, such as geese, peacock, grasscutter and antelope is a wonderful way to explore this possibility.
Just like those who are passionate for gardening, people who have many years experience in keeping geese have always shared that the entire experience is a great therapy. From the moment they start laying eggs, up to the time the egg hatch, grow and become adults, there is something about geese that helps stressed out people to relax. So if you are among the millions of people who need a break from the world’s break neck speed, you should consider raising geese as your stress getaway.
Geese farming
Geese possess terrific eyesight, good memories, and raucous voices; attributes that makes for excellent sentinels. What most Nigerians don’t know is that geese are very cheap and easy to maintain and they provide animal protein as well as cash income. Your geese probably won’t make you affluent by laying about sixty eggs a year, but they can earn their keep by supplying the following farm products and services that will surely bring in millions of naira:
(1) INFERTILE EGGS: Huge, good for catering, scrambling and baking, try marketing extras to bakery and fast food restaurants.
(2) MEAT: Higher protein contents, succulent, richer, palatable, and more tender than turkey and chicken. Provide a rich food source for an often-hungry populace
(3) FEATHERS/DOWN: Valuable for comfy pillows and light, insulating comforters and for other upholstery uses
(4) WEEDING/GRASS TRIMMING: Once used to weed a variety of crops, geese are again becoming popular weeders as organic method catch on (they fertilize the soil, too).
(5) TOURISM: Geese are animal of unique feature and this makes the animal tradable for tourist uses. The big versatile rare-waterfowl have been valued highly-even considered indispensable.
(6) SECURITY GUARD: Geese make ideal “watchdogs”, they are unbridable guard animals.
(7) FERTILIZED EGGS/BREEDING STOCK: If you raise purebreds, crossbreds or rare breeds, you can usually get a pretty good price for them, depending on your area of the country. At JOVANA FARMS, we have prolific breeds available for sale at N100,000 for 2-males and 3-females of 10-months old point-of-lay.
(8) PEST CONTROL: Chicken and turkey farmers keep geese to ward off poultry-eating predators. Rural dwellers like the way they gobble down diseases-carrying ticks, cockroaches, grasshoppers, and small snakes.
Geese farming is a trendy kind of “agribusiness”, intending farmers can start out small with 2-males and 3-females while still holding down a full-time job elsewhere. In many ways geese farming is the perfect moonlighting business that can generate huge income. The geese farming industry is still an underestimated type of poultry in Nigeria. But it has a large sustainable market for its many products and uses.
Friday, 15 July 2016
Snail Farming – How to farm these slow creatures for fast profits in Africa
Snail farming in Africa is one of the top interesting business opportunities on the continent.
West Africa is home to the largest species of land snail in the world. The Giant African land snail (Achatina species), is known to grow up to 30cm in length and can be found in the dense tropical rain forests across the region from Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Ghana to Nigeria.
For hundreds of years, Africa’s appetite for snails has been served through traditional means. Snails handpicked from the bush (usually in the dead of the night) have been the only way to get snails to the market and dinner table.
However, as Africa’s population explodes and our forests continue to be sacrificed to build cities, the (bush) supply of snails cannot keep up with the soaring demand.
This has created an opportunity in the market for snail breeders and farmers who now cultivate these interesting creatures on small farms and in their backyards for impressive profits.
Let’s find out how fast these slow animals can bring in cash….
First, the impressive success story of an African snail farmer…
Snail farming is a niche and unusual business and successful snail farmers like Nigeria’s Ismail Abdulazeez are enjoying the huge rewards of this lucrative but little known venture.
In his interview with CNN (see video below), Ismail, who cultivates snails in large cages in his backyard, shares his experience breeding snails for profit.
His prized products end up in some of the kitchens of high-end hotels in Lagos where they are creatively used to prepare tasty African dishes.
Snails are a great delicacy, and for good reason too…
Snails are a huge part of the diet in many parts of Africa, although they are not always affordable and available all year round. Their high protein, low fat and cholesterol content make them a nutritional favourite.
Snails contain almost all the amino acids needed by the body and most of its by-products are used for cosmetics and medicines.
As our population becomes more interested in healthier living and low-cholesterol diets, snails will become a popular alternative to to all the fatty and non-healthy meats that flood our markets nowadays. They are much cheaper than red meat with greater health benefits on top!
Snails have, for a long time, been a popular and recurring item on the menus of hotels, restaurants and bars where they often feature as boiled, fried and spiced kebabs. They are also a great addition to soups and stews which are a significant part of most African dishes.
Tasty African delicacies featuring the Giant African snail (photo credits: afrolems.com; mamadish.com)
Market Opportunities for Snail Farming in Africa
Most of the snails supplied to the African market are gathered from bushes and forests during the rainy season (usually between April and September).
Because snails are very dormant during the dry season, they become increasingly scarce during this period and the market is starved of adequate supply until the next wet season. This makes the supply of snails very seasonal in many parts of Africa where they serve as food.
As a consequence, snails can fetch much higher prices during the dry season (December to March) when supply often does not keep up with demand.
Snails may go on break during the dry seasons but the human appetite for its taste always remains, and continues to grow throughout the year. And to think that several festivities take place during the dry season (Christmas et al), makes this a first choice agribusiness.
Due to steadily growing demand from customers, hotels and restaurants are always in need of snail delicacies on their menus. And given the significant upside to the profits that can be made, it makes a lot of sense to take maximum advantage of this market when the supply of snails is significantly short.
There is also growing demand in Europe for giant African snails. Apart from their great taste, many people abroad like to keep them as pets and keepsakes due to their sheer size (I was surprised too!). But never mind, you are likely to be very busy satisfying the local demand to bother about exports.
However, it’s still good to know that such foreign market opportunities exist for this small business. If you’re interested in exports, you could read up the
Giant African snails are a popular sight on Africa’s interstate and transnational highways (photo credit: Frans Lanting)
Success tips for aspiring Snail farming in Africa
As a Smallstarter, your primary goal should be to take advantage of the seasonality of this market in order to gain premium prices for your snails. Target the high-end customers (hotels, restaurants and households) who can afford to pay a premium for a steady supply of the product.
If you supply all year round, you are likely to earn lesser during the rainy seasons (when supply is in abundance) and more in the dry seasons (when the product is scarce).
You could buy cheaply from the villages and other remote areas while the supply is up during the rainy season and maintain a healthy stock of large snails that you can unleash on your customers when supply falls in the dry season.
But to achieve this, there is a very important condition. The size of your snails must be large and ‘intimidating’ enough to command a premium (high) price.
For this to happen, you must start your snail farm with the right species (the Giant African type) and ensure that you apply proper breeding, stocking and feeding practices to achieve the huge sizes that will make you a highly sought after supplier.
If your snails are bred well, they should start to reach market size from six to twelve months, although some farmers like to leave theirs for much longer. (photo credit: msn.com)
Presently, more than 90 percent of the snails supplied to our local markets are picked from the forests. While this has been the traditional supply source, our growing population and rising rural to urban migration rates make it unsustainable.
An artificial intervention like snail farming is the only way to satisfy the growing demand. And as long as a huge chunk of the market depends on snails captured in the wild, nobody can assure a steady and consistent supply of large snails like a farmer who breeds snails in his/her backyard!
Some things you should consider before you start a snail farm…
In terms of cost and time, snail farming is a low risk business. Unlike many other livestock businesses, snail farming requires very little startup and operating costs.
It can be run from your backyard (if you have a sizeable one) or on that piece of land wasting away in your neighbourhood or village.
Snails are friendly to the environment and their droppings are not offensive (unlike pigs and poultry) so there’s no chance an angry neighbor will come knocking.
Snails also multiply really fast laying up to 100 eggs in one go. Because snails are hermaphrodites (have both male and female sexual organs), they get to mate easily throughout the year. This high reproduction rate has made snails a pest in many regions of the world.
However, it’s this fast reproductive ability that makes these slow creatures a delight to an entrepreneur. Snails can give very high returns on your initial investment if you do your homework well and target niche and repeat customers. (photo credit: scientificamerican.com)
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