Over the last seven months or so, an individual who used to work as a guard/doorman at my mother’s apartment set up a small poultry farm using funds ‘borrowed’ from me. This individual is highly entrepreneurial, having set up a micro level poultry raising operation in a 3ft.x 10 ft. space next to the building when he was working as a doorman. We set him up in a small plot of land owned by my uncle in Savar (it’s rent free) and he now has just over a thousand young hens busily laying eggs! Based on his ability and success, I have encouraged him to expand.
As you read this, he is completing a second poultry shed, courtesy of the Bangladesh Relief Fund. The approximate cost of building the 40 ft. x 75 ft. shed is about $2,000. We opted to use bamboo instead of iron wherever possible and raise the chickens in an ‘open’ pen instead of individual cages. The bamboo is indigenous and naturally renewable so I preferred it to imported iron. And there is something inherently not right about making chickens spend their entire life packed three to a 1 ft. x 3 ft. cage!
The shed ought to be completed by the end of next month and should get populated with 1,100 3-day old chicks that will take about 22 weeks (and $2,000 of feed) to get to the stage where they will lay eggs for about 18 months. During their productive period, they will average 900 or so eggs a day for the flock. The proceeds from about 700 eggs (per day) will be needed as operating costs (feed and labor) and the rest will be profit and return of invested capital. At 200 eggs per day for 500 days at 4-5 cents per egg, there is a gross return of $4k-$5K on the project on about $3K of invested capital (amortizing the shed over 5 years.) At the end of their laying days, the chickens are sold off for about $1,000 or so for a total profit of $2-3K.
My best guess is that each shed provides direct employment for 1.5 individuals on a continuing basis. Indirectly, my wild guess is that another 1-2 individuals are employed through the process of shed building, feed manufacture and distribution, egg collection and marketing and veterinary services. It is very preliminary, but the numbers for this model look like $2,000 investment in infrastructure plus $3,000 investment in ‘working capital’ generates 3-4 permanent jobs. The working capital will be returned to the fund after each batch and it is my hope that after three or four batches have been run, the operation would be self funding.
The goal of the Savar Poultry Project is to develop prototype operating models for the small scale, commercial poultry farms. Savar’s proximity to Dhaka allows for greater oversight and access to resources. The knowledge and operating expertise gained here will be put to use in other places. If the second poultry shed works out well, we may purchase an adjacent piece of land and build an additional shed as well as a training/research center to help our other planned poultry projects.
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