- In February 2024 whilst visiting the village we were shown an empty chicken house which was previously used by women from the village but has been left empty for some years. We discussed with Pierre, the captain of the boys brigade, the possibility of them starting a poultry business selling chickens and eggs that would provide income to finance the brigades.
- They were given permission to use the building and cleared the surrounding land.
- You can see below that the building needs to be made secure and the inside needs fitting out. A plan including cost/benefits was produced.
- In June 2024 we started a Just Giving Page to raise the money needed and by generous donations we had hit our target by the end of July.
Update from our visit in October 2024
I was hoping to give an update whilst in Gambia but things didn’t go to plan! We arranged for the windows in both rooms to have extra rows of blocks added for security reasons and to keep out some of the heat and rain but decided to only install the window frames and mesh for one room to begin with. This we partitioned so that we can separate the chickens once the layers start producing eggs. The wood from the old frames was used for the mesh and also to make perches and empty ground nut shells were put on the floor.
25 chicks had been bought and kept in our compound; they were a few days old when we arrived. It wasn’t very long before only 8 had survived for various reasons but we were given 8 replacements but 2 of those died. This was so sad and disappointing however I am pleased to say these 14 successfully moved into the chicken house and being looked after by Pierre and Peter with the help of Abraham.
We also now have 12 more little chicks that should move in soon after Christmas. As we have lost 1 of our 2nd batch we currently have 25 altogether. Of these, 15 are broilers and 10 are layers. The broilers should be ready for sale in January and February and the layers hopefully will start laying in March.
January has been a difficult month, of the 12 chicks that moved in at the beginning of the month, only 6 have survived. We think this has been due to the drop in temperature at night.
The conclusion is that with the facilities we have available at the moment it is no use having young chicks between the months of October and February; although the temperatures are high during the day they can drop 15 degrees overnight.
We have 10 layers and 9 broilers, the first 3 broilers haven’t been sold as they are not up to a good enough weight yet as there was a shortage of food.
We have taken the decision to have only layers from now on. This will avoid the need to buy small chicks and with the rising price of feed, it will be more cost effective to sell eggs. We can purchase 2 cockerels and raise chicks, if and when needed, which will save money.
We also need to look at ways of growing our own feed, it is expensive and of short supply where they are. We will look at the options whilst we are back in the Gambia in March.
We will also separate the broilers from the layers so that they can have the layer feed and we look forward to the first eggs being laid! Please check back at the end of April to see how the project is progressing