From pot to profit: How Western Kenya is turning dinner staple into cash

Chickens are a common sight in many homes across Western Kenya. For generations, however, most households have kept the birds mainly for their own consumption, giving little thought to their potential as a reliable source of income.

Under this system, chickens are left to scratch around the compound, forage in the fields and roost at night, reflecting a long-standing tradition of keeping poultry.

Yet, beneath the feathers and familiar clucking lies an often-overlooked goldmine: the potential to turn poultry keeping  into a profitable enterprise.

Through interventions targeting governance structures, improved breeds and management, farmer training, stronger cooperatives and reliable market linkages, thousands of farmers in Western Kenya and beyond who once kept chickens mainly for the family pot are beginning to view poultry as a source of income, employment and business growth.

Today, for Julian Nafula, the birds scratching around her compound are no longer simply chickens for the dinner table.

“Chickens have become a source of income, a means of starting other businesses and a pathway to improving our livelihoods,” says Nafula, a chairperson of Bungoma County Youth Sacco (BUCO), based in the Chwele area of Kabuchai Sub-County, Bungoma County.

She recalls that for a long time, she kept chickens mainly for family consumption or slaughter for visitors, as it was cheaper than buying meat.

Nafula says the traditional chickens would lay and sit on their eggs, hatch them and then roam around with their chicks before returning to the nest.

However, the shift from keeping chickens for home consumption to running a viable poultry business began when Heifer International Kenya, in partnership with the Swedish Embassy, came on board through the Kenya Livestock Marketing and Resilience Project (KLMP) and began empowering community members with improved poultry management skills.

The main objective is to improve farmers’ livelihoods and resilience by strengthening production systems, particularly in the poultry value chain, while enhancing the broader value chain systems that support farmers.

Nafula says the organisation trained farmer groups on brooding their own chicks and linked them with partners involved in chick brooding, enabling them to access quality chicks. Partners also provided other production inputs like feeds.

“We could either brood the chicks ourselves or buy them from local brooders and other partners,” she says.

Extension service provider for BUCO, Paul Wabomba, says they began with improved Kienyeji, buying chicks when they are just one month old and focused on brooding.

Initially, they started by brooding 100 chicks before increasing the number to 200 improved Kienyeji chicks. “We provide the chicks with heat, feed and water until they are one month old, after which we sell them to other farmers to raise to maturity,” Wabomba says.

Their efforts received a boost when Heifer supported the members with brooding equipment, including gas brooders and heaters, that can accommodate between 300 and 500 chicks, enabling the group to move into bulk production.

In June this year, BUCO ventured into broilers, which mature in less than a month. Farmers share that broilers’ shorter cycle means they can sell one flock, recover their investment and start another cycle sooner.

“We have learned that broilers’ faster turnover is particularly important because every extra week a bird remains on the farm means additional costs,” Wabomba explains.

Christine Wafula is among the young farmers who have benefited from poultry farming. She ventured into the business in 2025, initially without plans to make it a source of income.

“I had not planned to venture into poultry farming, but I decided to give it a try after learning about its benefits. I started with an investment of about Sh20,000, which I later increased to Sh50,000 and then Sh100,000,” says Wafula, a farmer from Mahele in Bungoma County.

Previously, she relied on coffee farming for income. However, she says poultry farming has proved more rewarding than coffee.

Keeping chickens helps her to meet household expenses, including school fees, while also saving for the future.

“It has helped me a lot. I am now able to pay school fees without struggling as much as I used to. I have also been able to save money and plan for the future,” she says.

Wafula sells one-month-old chicks at Sh300 each and two-month-old birds at Sh650, while mature chickens fetch about Sh900 each.

Dr Dennis Ogaso, livestock production coordinator at Heifer International Kenya, says the project supported a model known as mother brooding.

Under this model, selected farmers who have the capacity to brood chicks are supported with heating systems to raise chicks for up to one month.

This enables other farmers who may not have the capacity to brood chicks to access healthy, one-month-old chicks.

He says, “Before the project, we conducted a baseline survey and found that farmers were struggling with production, largely due to difficulties accessing production inputs. The challenges included both the high cost and limited availability of inputs.”

He adds, “Among the interventions we undertook was strengthening access to inputs and creating linkages between producers and input suppliers.”

The project also worked with producers to strengthen their farmer organisations. These organisations were supported to become stronger business entities and linked them to input suppliers where they could access quality feeds at negotiated rates.

Dr Ogaso discloses that the model has been successful because it allows farmers to buy the number of birds they can manage, ranging from 10 to 50 chickens. By the time the birds reach one month, they have undergone the necessary vaccinations and treatments.

As a result, their survivability has been very good. The model has helped reduce mortality and increase profitability for farmers.

“The project has impacted many people and livelihoods because poultry is an enterprise that many people can undertake. It requires relatively little space, and the capital needed to start a poultry enterprise is not very high,” Dr Ogaso says.

Vice president of Ibanda Agri Business Cooperative Society, located in Bumala, Busia County, Alice Akinyi, shares that shifting from traditional indigenous chicken to improved breeds has helped members increase their incomes.

She says, for many years, households kept only a few indigenous chickens, mainly for home consumption.

However, following training, many farmers began switching to improved Kienyeji chicken, which grows faster, lays more eggs and attains a higher market weight.

Akinyi says Heifer supported the cooperative to establish mother brooders in different locations, enabling members to access quality chicks locally.

“Through these mother brooders, we supply chicks to our members, who rear them to maturity and sell them for between Sh800 and Sh1,000, depending on their size and condition,” she says.

She says the project has also changed perceptions about chicken farming across the county. People who previously never considered rearing chickens are now taking it up after seeing the income it can generate.

“Today, members can use income from chicken farming to meet their household needs, including paying school fees,” she says.

At Ushindi Poultry and Marketing Cooperative Society in Kiminini Sub County, Trans Nzoia County, an intervention by Heifer International has helped save the organisation from collapse after disagreements among board members threatened its operations.

Chairperson Janet Bakasa says the society started well but later ran into difficulties as personal egos and different management styles among board members began to undermine collective decision-making.

“Many of the board members were retired professionals who brought management approaches from their previous workplaces and personal businesses. Instead of developing a common way of running the cooperative, members tried to impose their individual approaches,” she says.

Bakasa says a four-day governance training facilitated through KLMP forced the board to confront its weaknesses and rethink how it worked together.

The members examined their shared values, strengths and weaknesses, while also assessing whether they were taking responsibility for the committees and roles assigned to them.

For Bakasa, the experience demonstrated the importance of good governance in the survival and growth of farmer organisations.

“We have seen the good side of doing business together and the bad side of pulling at one another instead of helping one another,” she says.

Today, the society is thriving in the poultry value chain, with improved cooperation among its members and board.