Kikondo, UG – With VICOBA assistance, FMJ adds poultry to family businesses – Jan 2024

FMJ family’s standard of living has improved by adding broiler chicken sales to its activities to earn income. It was in June 2019 that the family lost its house and all household items due to heavy rains
( https://betterlives.org/2019/06/kikondo-ug-community-bands-together-to-help-rebuild-fmj-familys-house/ ). Wamukisa intervened by introducing this family to Zinabala Vicoba which helped the family rebuild itself.

The family managed to maintain a 6-bed FAITH garden where it gets fresh vegetables for its children. They now are healthy, with 2 out of 4 children joined secondary school. They have been operating a commercial garden which has made the family save with the Vicoba and also have income to spend for their upkeep. They have enough money to pay Destiny Secondary School tuition.

FMJ mother has managed to start a broiler-keeping business using her Zinabala savings account without borrowing. Broilers take 8 weeks to mature and sell, so the family sold 200 broilers last month (Christmas season). She invested 1,580,000 shillings in the project: 200 chicks at 2,500 each=500,000. Feeds of 400 kg at 1,700 = 680,000. Vaccines cost 200,000. Labor cost 200,000. She sold 200 birds at 12,000 =2,400,000, making a profit of 820,000 shillings (about $234).

With this profit the family is expanding its poultry house and it has built a fence. They use the chicken manure in compost. The family also bought a solar system so that it has light at night.

A challenge is that chick traders sometimes supply poor quality chicks that can take more than 8 weeks to grow into broilers. That leads to extra costs in managing the project, affecting profits.

The FMJ family hopes to expand its poultry business because it now has customers.