My beautiful, profitable fowls, and they are not chickens

Some of the Kuroiler breed of chicken that Allan Mwangi rears together with his guinea fowls through 'deep-litter-system at his farm in Classic Estate Nyeri Town.PHOTO|BONIFACE MWANGI|NATION

What you need to know:

  • The farmer keeps 54 birds in his poultry farm located at his home in Nyeri Town
  • The father of two says he started in 2014 with 11 five months old birds (three male and eight females), which he bought at Sh2,000 each from farmers in Meru where he works as the manager at the Githongo Tea Factory
  • When he started, Mwangi says his aim was to make his farm beautiful because he also keeps chickens.
  • The farmer buys cabbages and other vegetables which he feeds the birds twice a week.
  • According to her, the birds require a dry coop and well-ventilated cages, raised rails for patching and resting after feeding to their fullest.

Beautiful birds, with black-dotted white plumage and a black crest cluck and huddle into a corner at the farm in Nyeri after hearing farmer Allan Mwangi approach the coop.

Mwangi enters the poultry house, picks one of them, and then another.

“They are a little shy, unlike the chickens. Perhaps this is because they are supposed to be in the wild,” says Mwangi as he looks at the guinea fowls.

The farmer keeps 54 birds in his poultry farm located at his home in Nyeri Town.

“Forty-three of them are five months old while 11 are mature.”

Humble beginning

The father of two says he started in 2014 with 11 five months old birds (three male and eight females), which he bought at Sh2,000 each from farmers in Meru where he works as the manager at the Githongo Tea Factory.

He had to wait for about a year before they started laying eggs and he later hatched them in his 528-egg capacity incubator.

“The fowls offered 13 eggs when they started laying. I put them in the incubator and only six hatched. The eggs take 26-28 days to hatch.”

When he started, Mwangi says his aim was to make his farm beautiful because he also keeps chickens.

“However, since the number has increased and people are asking to buy them, I decided to go commercial,” says Mwangi, noting that the market for keets, eggs, meat and live birds is available.

He has currently concentrated on hatching the keets for sale before he lands other markets.

He sells a month-old keet at Sh1,000 while a two-month-old one goes for Sh1,500.

“I feed the birds the same feeds I offer my chickens from chick to layers mash. This has kept my costs down.”

Controlling cannibalism

The farmer also buys cabbages and other vegetables which he feeds the birds twice a week.

He has divided the guinea fowl coop into cages, housing them according to their ages to avoid cannibalism and scramble for feeds.

“Since I started rearing these wild birds, I have realised they consume very little feeds compared to chicken. At the same time, they act as my guards because they alert me in case a stranger enters my compound.”

Away from the guinea fowl coop there is a poultry house that hosts 200 Kuroiler chickens at any one time. He sells eggs from the birds at Sh15 each.

Doris Wambui, a livestock production officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Nyeri, said it is always advisable to vaccinate both chicken and guinea fowls against Newcastle and fowl pox diseases.

“These are the two diseases that are common for both birds and we normally advice our farmers to vaccinate their birds against them to avoid their spread.”

Low cost and resilient birds

Guinea fowls, according to her, are best reared through a free-range system since they are wild birds that are used to ‘freedom’.

She notes that the number of farmers rearing these birds are fewer due to poor market prices and lack of knowledge.

However, compared to chickens, guinea fowl are low-cost and low-maintenance, and are rarely attacked by pests.

“These birds are seasonal layers since they come from the wild and it will be costly for a farmer who will keep them with an expectation of collecting eggs on a daily basis.”

According to her, the birds require a dry coop and well-ventilated cages, raised rails for patching and resting after feeding to their fullest.

After every three months, Mwangi deworms his guinea fowls and chickens as well as adds calcium to the feeds of the laying brood.

“Since I started, I have hatched guinea fowl eggs six times. The birds lay about five eggs in a season and 30 the entire year but generally, one is not even guaranteed of consistent laying, which is why my brood is growing slowly,” says Mwangi, who has built dark nests for the birds for laying.

Before he started keeping guinea fowls, Mwangi had to seek a permit from Kenya Wildlife Service. The licence goes for Sh1,500 and is renewable every year.