Make more money through strengthening chick production and expanding market
Published: Nov 18, 2022 Reading time: 2 minutes
Mr. Chuob Tien is a chick producer living in Chheu Teal village, Chheu Teal commune, Sandan district, Kompong Thom province who joined the Development of Poultry Value Chain for Sustainable Community Adaptative Livelihood Enhancement (Dev4Scale) project in March 2022. He is a farmer growing rice and cashew nuts and produce chick to supply producer group (PG) members in the Prey Lang community. In order to have another source of income to support his livelihood, he decided to join the Dev4Scale project to hopefully, help him to have better income.
To promote environmentally friendly solutions, increase climate resilience and livelihoods, in 2021, People in Need (PIN), with financial support from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Green Prey Lang project (GPL), conceptualized the Dev4SCALE project which aims to provide communities with more sustainable and equitable economic opportunities to generate income from alternative sources, such as poultry production, and help reduce pressure on forests and natural resources. Through the project activities, farmers will be provided with the technical skills on chicken raising, develop business plans, and establish market linkages.
Before joining the project, Mr. Chuob Tien has been managing a small chicken farm using a traditional method by use flock management for chicken parent and apply natural breeding-there are 7-10 hens with one rooster per block. Hence, he has not been equipped with proper skills and knowledge on chick raising, disease control, standard feed production, and administrative work (including finance records and business plan) which provide him less profit. At that time, he no longer wanted to raise chickens since he was unfamiliar with how to properly run his business or find a market for his chickens.
After joining the project, he received training of how to control diseases and have proper feed production and transformed from flock management and natural breeding to AI techniques. This has helped him identify diseases and provide proper vaccines and medication to prevent severe conditions and any transmission of the disease. One of the techniques Tien learned is the Artificial Insemination (AI) method to produce eggs. Moreover, the project also supports Tien with new coop construction, 50 parents’ stock, and one incubator.
Tien always attends the meetings and trainings to learn and apply to his business. In October, he harvested between 1,000 to 1,200 chickens per month. He earned approximately 8 million Khmer Riels (KHR) ($2000), wherein he earned 50% profit. Now, with a much better profit, less work and time spent on farm management, the chick production business is surely a great option for him. Tien shares his experience to farmers, "Raising chicks is not too hard, does not require a big space, and too much time. What you need to have are commitment and patience”.
Moving forward, Tien sees himself expanding his business in chick raising. “I will build a new coop near my house, larger than the current one in order to increase the number of parents stock raised and produce more chicks as I have a much higher demand now”, says Tien.
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