Method Charles | October 2, 2022
News Brief
Veronika Masaka is a poultry farmer who hails from Mvumi village in the Dodoma region of central Tanzania. She decided to rear local chickens because feed for hybrid chickens is expensive. She says: “My chickens spend 10 hours a day outside their housing, and all that time they are busy looking for food. But I always make sure that there is enough water outside the house for the chickens to drink.” To ensure that her chickens eat a variety of foods, Miss Masaka developed a weekly feeding schedule, which includes a variety of fruits, vegetables, and leaves. Though local chickens are easier to feed and raise than hybrid chickens, Miss Masaka says that diseases pose a major challenge. She explains, “To deal with this challenge, I always give my chickens vaccines because I am aware that they can catch diseases when they are roaming around to search for food.”
It’s a Tuesday afternoon and the sky is a clear blue. Veronika Masaka’s compound is calm, but a chilly wind is blowing and dry leaves are falling from the trees, announcing the arrival of the dry season.
Miss Masaka is busy feeding her chickens. The 57-year-old farmer is throwing leftovers from last night’s dinner to the chickens before allowing them to leave her compound to search for feed.
She says: “My chickens spend 10 hours a day outside their housing, and all that time they are busy looking for food. But I always make sure that there is enough water outside the house for the chickens to drink.”
Miss Masaka is a poultry farmer who hails from Mvumi village in the Dodoma region of central Tanzania. She decided to rear local chickens because feed for hybrid chickens is expensive.
She explains, “In terms of feed, local chickens are easy to raise because I use food leftovers and fruits, weeds, and green leaves to avoid costs. I always give them this food before they go out.”
Miss Masaka maintains a stock of 500 chickens. Though local chickens are easier to feed and raise than hybrid chickens, Miss Masaka says that diseases pose a major challenge.
She says, “To deal with this challenge, I always give my chickens vaccines because I am aware that they can catch diseases when they are roaming around to search for food.”
To minimize the risk of catching diseases, Miss Masaka also provides adequate water and food leftovers to her chickens before they leave their housing in the morning. This ensures that the chickens don’t have to travel far when searching for food and water.
She explains: “That way, when the chickens need water, they can easily get it in my compound instead of going for a long time without drinking water or drinking dirty water that can cause diseases.”
To ensure that the chickens eat a variety of foods, Miss Masaka developed a weekly feeding schedule. She explains, “For instance, on Tuesday, I often look for green leaves and vegetables like spinach and cabbage to feed my chickens.”
She adds: “I also pick other leaves like weeds and mix them in order to reduce the cost of feeding the chickens. The chickens get extra vitamins and calcium from the vegetable leaves.”
Miss Masaka also gives her chickens fruits like guavas and bananas. The fruits help them get vitamin C and other nutrients that help protect them from diseases.
Silvester Gideon is another local poultry farmer who feeds his local chickens with locally available foods. He feeds them millet and maize husks every morning before they go out to search for food.
He says that feeding chickens with locally available food helps him boost his profits because he spends less on expensive chicken feed.
Mr. Gideon receives a profit of 10,000 Tanzania Shillings (US$50) for every 10 chickens he sells. He says, “I sell local chickens to people that do ceremonies like weddings. I also sell to people in urban areas, to different hotels, and to vendors.”
Miss Masaka says the high cost of chicken feed forces her to continue rearing local chickens.
She explains, “Expenses for feeding 100 hybrid chickens are very high. For example, a 50-kilogram bag of poultry feed costs about 70,000 Tanzania Shillings ($35 US).”
She says that she will continue raising local chickens because it is helping her to support her family.
This resource is undertaken with the financial support of the Biovision Foundation.
Photo: Chickens in Benin. Credit: Arne Hoel for the World Bank.