Getting it right with incubation, hatching

Mr Kennedy Oracha at his Mamboleo workshop in Kisumu where he makes hatchery machines of different sizes. [Collins Oduor, Standard]

I have had the opportunity to enjoy 13 years working in a hatchery, incubating and hatching day-old chicks for supply within East Africa. Although time alone does not qualify me to be extremely knowledgeable in incubation technology, it gave me a rare chance to learn the basic requirements and what it takes to produce quality chicks. So, I was not surprised some years ago when I was invited to the offices of Ministry of Youth Affairs to lend my knowledge on incubators. The ministry was floating tenders for supply of more than 1,000 incubators for poultry production to be given to youth and women groups as seed capital. I later found out that these chicken incubators were bought and supplied as originally intended to local youth groups that had little ideas on running a hatchery. Today, however, if you ask how many of these incubators are working, you would be surprised that only 100 could be operational. There are fundamental principles that are a must to excel in incubation and production of day-old chicks. I will explain in detail.

1.   Establishment and licensing of hatchery and breeding farms (for commercial purposes)