Recently, Benjamin Akena, a student of tourism at the university, sold 150 ducks and got sh2m. PHOTO/Jackie Nambogga
Vision
Group in partnership with dfcu bank and the Netherlands Embassy in
Uganda is searching for Uganda’s best farmers. Harvest Money is
profiling nominated farmers every Tuesday until September when a panel
of judges shall select Uganda’s best farmers. Sh150m and a fully
sponsored trip to the Netherlands await the best farmers who will be
announced in October.
By Jackie Nambogga
Many people dislike ducks because of
their uncontrollable behaviour like dumping waste all over the place. By
contrast, Benjamin Akena, the 22-year-old student of Makerere
University (Jinja branch) pursuing a bachelor’s degree in tourism is
proud of his ducks’ farm.
The project, which sits on a 100ftx50ft
piece of land, fetches him enough money to cover both his tuition fees
and other necessities. Akena’s project is located at his elder brother’s
homestead in Triangle Zone, Njeru town council in Buikwe district.
How he started
Akena started rearing ducks during his
Senior Six vacation in 2010. Initially, he kept ducks for home
consumption, but his attitude changed after he visited his friend, Bob
Otto, who owns a piggery and also rears ducks in Njeru town council.
Otto was earning millions of shillings
from his ducks and Akena felt an irresistible urge to follow suit. “We
used to eat the eggs for breakfast and reared ducks for meat, but when I
told my brother Lalobo how Otto’s project was faring, he bought the
idea and discouraged me from giving the family the eggs and ducks for
meat. This is how I managed to multiply the numbers in a short time,” he
says.
Running the farm
Since ducks need plenty of water to
survive, Akena constructed a pond for them on the same small piece of
land. He uses a water pump to channel the water into the pond. The dirty
water in the pool is not wasted. Every after three days, Akena uses the
water to irrigate the flowers and the grass in the compound. To mow the
grass, Akena uses a tractor and a manual mower.
The tractor cuts and pelts the grass
into small pieces, making it easy for the ducks to feed on. Akena
improvised a five-litre jerryycan, which he fixed on the mower, to act
as a grass harvester.
The grass which is not used to feed the
ducks is used as mulch in the flower gardens Akena also improvised a
candler, which he uses to test the eggs during the first week of the
brooding period to establish if the embryo is forming or not. The
candler contains a florescent bulb, which is enclosed into a long
paper-like tube.
He powers the candler with a generator.
Unlike chicken eggs, which take 21 days to hatch, those of ducks take
about 35. Akena manages his project alone because it does not require
much effort.
Unlike chicken which are highly
susceptible to diseases, Akena says ducks are rarely attacked by
disease. “I have never bought any drugs for my ducks all these years.
This is a good venture because it is not expensive and tiresome compared
to rearing chicken,” he says.
The swimming pool Akena constructed for his ducks
Market linkages
Akena, who started with 12 ducks in
2010, now boasts of 233.Of these, 150 are female A mature female duck
costs sh15,000, while a male duck goes for between sh20,000 to sh30,000,
depending on the size. He also sells ducklings at sh10,000 each.
Most of his clients are from Nwoya
district, where duck meat is on high demand. Recently, he sold 150 ducks
and bagged sh2m. If well-fed, ducks lay between 15 to 20 eggs per
month.
A a tray of duck eggs goes for about
sh11,000. Most of his clients who buy eggs are chapatti and cake bakers
within the area. “I have a female client who bakes cakes and pays for
the eggs in advance. The demand for eggs is so high compared to my
production,” Akena laments.
He earns between sh50,000 and sh80,000 weekly from eggs alone.
Investing in knowledge
Akena does not miss New Vision’s
pull-out Harvest Money published every Tuesday, which he confesses has
given him a lot of information on farming. “My brother buys New Vision
every day, but he makes sure that he keeps for me that of Tuesday
because I must read Harvest Money,” he says.
In July last year, Akena bought two
geese (a male and female), popularly known as water fowl, from Kenya at
sh300,000. This was after he researched on the Internet and discovered
that goose meat was on high demand in Kenya, the United States of
America and France.
“I am trying to multiply the geese as I
did with my ducks. Recently, the female goose laid seven eggs, but it
failed to hatch any due to poor brooding,” he says.
However, when he discovered that one of
the eggs was still good, he gave it to a duck which was brooding and it
hatched an offspring.
Achievements
Akena says he does not feel the pinch to
fuel the motorcycle he uses to go for lectures. “I used to incur high
transport costs to attend lectures, but ever since my mother, Lucy Uma, a
retired nurse, gave me the motorcycle she used to ride while going to
work, transport is no longer a big challenge.
Akena went to Negri P/S in Gulu district
and to Kalinabbiri P/S, where he completed his Primary Seven. Later, he
joined St. Lawrence SS in Kampala for his O’ and A’level.
Akena mowing the grass in the family compound. He uses the grass to feed the ducks
*********************
The economics of rearing ducks (By online sources)
The economics of rearing ducks (By online sources)
Rearing ducks is a well-paying venture,
especially because there is a high demand for their eggs and meat. There
are also several advantages that accrue to farmers rearing ducks. For
starters, ducks are rarely attacked by infections like other poultry
breeds as long as they are kept in the right environment.
Ducks are great rummagers and are quite
happy to eat the snails, flies and bugs in your garden and compound.
Unlike raising chickens, ducks will not destroy your flowers or your
vegetables if you let them loose in your garden.
Ducks are a vital player in the farm’s
ecology by eating snails, slugs and other bugs in your vegetable garden.
They also provide rich manure to enrich your soil.
However, foraging for food is not enough
for a duck if you want it to be a good layer and a fat bird for your
table. You will need to supplement their diet with chopped tomatoes,
maize bran, duck marsh or remains of foods from a meal.
A farmer should also make sure he
provides his ducks with lots of fresh drinking water, which is an
absolute requirement. A clean bucket of water each day allows the ducks
to drink and wash, if you can get a suitable automatic drinker, big
enough for the ducks to immerse their heads, then that is even better.
A farmer should note that a duck that
does not have access to water to clean its eyes on a regular basis will
go blind. Where possible, create a pond for the ducks to swim and play
in.
If ducks do not have access to water,
they start showing abnormal behaviour and may fly off in search of water
and never come back. Clean the ponds regularly.
The pump Akena uses to feed water to the ducks’ swimming pool
If the pond is costly to sink, then one
can sink an old plastic or metalling drum. However, make sure that you
construct it in such a way that all ducks and ducklings can get access
it easily. When it comes to housing, the other thing to note with ducks
is that they cannot climb.
Therefore, it is important that the door
of the house is low enough for the ducks to go through easily. Ducks
are also good at laying eggs and if one has a good breed one can get up
to 200 eggs per year per bird if it is fed well.
Ducks start laying eggs at around six
months of age. If you are going to let your ducks hatch their eggs
naturally be carefully and do not touch the eggs of change the nest when
it starts laying eggs. In cases where it leaves the eggs you can still
hatch them by putting them under a brooding chicken.
However, due to the large size of the
duck eggs a chicken can only comfortably sit on seven to 10 duck eggs.
You will need to make sure that the eggs are sprinkled with water
regularly, especially towards the last few days. Ducks fatten fast and
can be ready for eating after three months.
If well-fed, ducks can weigh up to 5kg
in six months. One thing that you need to know is that the ducks reach a
time when they stop adding on weight, however much you feed them. This
stage is called the moulting stage.
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