I quit accounts job to count my own chicks

Lilian Okwiry at her poultry farm in Kisumu. The farm has 1,000 chickens. Jacob Owiti | Nation 

In Summary

• She advises those planning to get into the business to be patient, because it doesn’t always pick up as fast as one may want.

By ANGELA OKETCH
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Reporting to work every morning and having to sit in an office doing accounting from 8am to 5pm used to give Lilian Okwiry headaches. How could she be anyone’s employee while everything in her system said she should be the boss?

And so after only six months on the job at a firm in Kisumu, she decided to retire. That was in 2004.

“I did not like the aspect of reporting to work every day as I desired so much to be my own boss. I had to set up my own business, and I decided to venture into poultry-keeping in Kisumu,” she told Seeds of Gold, adding: “Each and every person aspires to have a life that’s comfortable.”

Second-hand clothes
Although she had done her research well and knew what she was going into, Okwiry did not have enough savings to enable her get into poultry keeping immediately.

She, therefore, started by selling second-hand cloths to generate the capital.
“I also started making ice-cream in my house and selling it to school children. I got a little cash and added it to what I was earning from the clothes business to get into poultry keeping,” she says.

Her initial capital was Sh30,000.
She bought 150 one-day-old chicks for Sh100 each and converted one of her bedrooms to house the birds.

After five weeks, the broilers were ready for the market, while layers took between four-to-five months to start laying eggs. Soon she moved the chicken from her bedroom to a structure that could accommodate 600 birds.

Counting her profits every day, Okwiry is now the envy of many in Kisumu’s Nyamasaria estate. She has a total of 1,000 chickens, 300 of them layers.

The 36-year-old says she does not regret quitting her job. “I am my own boss and I work at my own pace. I am happy with myself,” she says.

“Making the first move is always the beginning of everything,” she adds. “Had I clung onto my job then, I wouldn’t have made such impressive strides.”

Okwiry says that she makes at least Sh100,000 every five weeks from selling broilers, which go for Sh400 each, and the eggs at Sh330 per tray.

“I collect close to 10 trays of eggs every day and can sell between 50 and 60 birds daily when the demand is low,” she says.


After subtracting all the expenses, she is able to bank close Sh35,000 per month.

When business is at its peak, she receives orders to supply up to 150 birds per day.

“During such periods, I am forced to wake up as early as 4am and to hire more casual labourers,” she says.

She mainly sells broilers to hotels and learning institutions in Kisumu.

But things have not always been rosy.

“Last year was my worst year. The cash flow was very low, prices of feeds went up, not putting into consideration that customers wanted the products with the prices you first introduced them to,” she recalls.

Different diseases
She advises those planning to get into the business to be patient, because it doesn’t always pick up as fast as one may want.

Secondly, new keepers are advised to learn about the different diseases that afflict chicken and their vaccinations.

“I once lost my chicks when disease broke out and I got the wrong vaccination from an agrovet,” she says.