Steve Kamwamu is the Managing Director of Kamsa Poultry which has been in existence for the last nine years.
Steve was working at a local milling company when he ventured into poultry farming as a side-hustle, shortly before he realized its potential.
He quit his main job to fully concentrate on poultry farming.
Here is Steve’s story as narrated by WoK.
Interest
Steve ventured into poultry farming in 2014 after seeing the need to address the unavailability of nutritious foods.
He also ventured into chicken farming as he always had the urge of being a businessman.
“I started poultry farming in 2014, it grew out of interest to produce nutritious foods for out community and also the need to be a business person,” Steve mentioned.
He started chicken rearing as a side hustle but after realizing its potential money wise, he quit his job at a milling company to concentrate on his new venture.
“A year later I realized that the business needed more of my attention for it to move to the next level so I resigned to fully concentrate on the farm,” Steve added.
Steve noted that starting off was not easy as he lost most of his chicken, however, he got to learn more about chicken farming and the right breeds to rear.
“I was a naive farmer just like any other farmer, I went around buying young chicks from neighbors, I bought around 20 but most of the died
“Through the journey of raising these 20 chicks, I got to learn about commercial hatcheries that incubate and hatch eggs,” he explained.
Egg production
Steve explained that he majored in egg production as the sale of eggs is consistent compared to the sale of chicken meat.
He noted that selling of chicken meat was seasonal and it would go up on specific time such as holiday and festive seasons.
“I looked back through my records and realized that the sale of eggs was consistent and it had fe variables
“Selling of chicken has many variables; you find they sell a lot during festivities and long holidays but around January sells were low,” he said.
As of 2021, Steve had a unit of 5,000 egg laying birds producing 145 trays of eggs daily.
Challenges
Steve also spoke about challenges that he deals with in the poultry business.
He mentioned management of pests and diseases as one of the major challenge affecting the sector, with most of these diseases having a high mortality rate.
“Sometimes, disease outbreaks come even if you’ve done everything right. It’s something that you have to prepare for and acknowledge that it is most likely to happen,” he said.
Other challenges include unavailability of inputs such as feeds and vaccines.
