Agricultural sector in Kenya is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the last 10 years. Since 2005, we have witnessed great investments that are agricultural based being set up or being expanded in various parts of the country. In fact, the Nairobi Stocks Exchange have consistently had agricultural oriented companies among the best performers in share index. One of the amazing fields that is quite promising in terms of profitability is poultry keeping. There are very many areas that a farmer can invest in regard to poultry farming. These areas include;

• Hatching Chicks For Sale

This venture basically involves incubating fertile poultry eggs with a view to selling chicks to other farmers who intend to rear them. Here you many individual focus on selling one day old chicks, immediately after coming out of the hatcheries. Others prefers selling one week, two weeks or three week old chicks. As you would see later, there are various merits and demerits in selling chicks at each of this stages.

• Rearing Layers For Selling Of Eggs For Consumption.

This is one of the most common poultry farming practice in Kenya. Here, you buy chicks and rear them to maturity for them to start producing eggs. You will then sell this eggs to consumers who will use them directly as food or as ingredients for various food products likes cakes, breads etc.

• Rearing Cockerels and Hens with an aim to selling Fertile Eggs

You can also rear both male and female poultry breeds in order to be supplying fertile eggs to the farmers who carry out incubation and hatching services. In this business, you have to find out which breeds of poultry that are more popular and that have a higher demand either in your area or region since you do not want to have fertile eggs which no one is willing to buy, bearing in mind that fertile eggs have a very short life span.

• Rearing Poultry Breeds for Meet (eg. broilers).

This is another common type of poultry keeping practice in East Africa where chicks are reared for several weeks and then sold as meat for consumption. The most reared breed for meat is called the Broiler breed. Other breeds that are also reared for meat are the Indian Kuroiler and Kenbro. Before venturing into this investment, it is good to ensure that you have ready market since it could be quite expensive for you to rear the birds beyond their selling age.

• Rearing Poultry Breeds for Aesthetic Purposes (eg Guinea fowls).

This type of poultry farming is not so common but it is still a very lucrative venture in some part of the country. One of the areas where this is mostly practiced is along the coastal region whereby the farmers target the tourists as their main customers. Various poultry breeds that can serve the aesthetic purpose include guinea fowls, goose and ostrich.

• Rearing of Cockerels to Sell as Breeding Cocks.

In this practice, cocks are matured with an intention to sell them as breeding cocks mainly to propagate a new and better breed of poultry or just to ensure production of fertile eggs to farmers who may currently only have the females.