Peter Irungu is a farmer who abandoned poultry farming to raise exotic ducks and turkeys.
His love in farming began early in childhood, so it was no surprise that he closed his firm to pursue a career in chicken farming.
“I was brought up in a family where everything was rotating within farming. My experience with the supermarket was not good so I decided to go into poultry as a side hustle,” he explained.
Irungu began keeping kienyeji chickens, but he struggled to find a successful market for their eggs.
With high chicken feed prices, selling eggs at a throwaway price didn’t make sense, so he began selling the chicken.
“The feeds were expensive and I decided not to keep the chicken for eggs. I started selling the chicken but the market was not good as well,” Peter said.
This is what drove him to abandon chicken farming and instead raise kienyeji ducks and turkeys as alternative fowl.
“With the bad experience that I had with the chicken, I had already sold whatever I had and turned my focus to ducks and turkeys because when I compare the market, they have a big margin,” he said.
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Irungu also observed that ducks consume less food than chickens.
Duck eggs retail for Ksh 100, but chicken eggs are capped at Ksh 15. Ducklings can sell for up to Ksh 300, while chicks cost Ksh 100.
“I started doing large scale… When I started keeping ducks, I realized that there are many varieties of ducks. Among these breeds there are those that they have a ready market
“Ducks also has ready market for chicks and meat. The demand is high which keeps the price in check compared to chicken,” he added.
The most popular duck breed in Kenya is the pekin duck, which is highly preferred for meat production on both a local and large scale.
This is owing to the fact that it acquires weight quickly, reaching 3.2 kg in 6 weeks.
Irungu identified the inability to incubate duck eggs as one of the most significant obstacles when conducting duck husbandry.
“It has some issues, the success rate is 20-30 percent. It’s advisable to get kienyeji ducks when venturing into this type of farming
“If you want to make a fortune out of duck farming, you have to know how you’ll get your ducklings because using an incubator is a challenge,” he said.
