Poultry farming is a very popular vocation in Jawhar….. between the two batches of farmers whom we have trained over the last 3 months, almost all of our farmer-students have opted for poultry farming as a vocation…

During this period, all our effort to set up poultry farms for our students have been futile mainly because we were trying to set up farms with minimum 1,000 birds… The average cost of setting up a farm of this size is INR 50-60K. 

While we were trying to secure funding for them through various schemes, mudra loans, etc we did not meet with much success for various reasons.

That’s when we conceptualized the idea of a “Low Cost Poultry Farm” made from locally available materials… 

The kit comprises of basic materials needed to set up a poultry farm with 100 birds, e.g. material for fencing, tarpaulin cloth for the roof, feeder & drinker for the chicken, etc. The rest of the materials like bamboo poles, card board boxes & lamp for brooder, etc are locally available.

NeevJivan Foundation funds 75% of the total cost of setting up the farm is INR 7,500 and the farmers pay the rest of the amount. The cost of vaccination and food is over and above this which is bourne by the farmer. With a reduced entry barrier, we hope to get more and more farmers start a small-scale poultry.

The idea is to help the farmers who have never worked on a poultry farm start a small-scale poultry for the first time and gain experience to eventually start a bigger poultry farm. 

Typical poultry cycle for “desi" chicken is 4-5 months and in that time the chickens are ready to be sold…. There is a huge demand for “desi" chicken in the market and they fetch very good price.

We have distributed kits for low-cost poultry farms to 10 of our farmer-students in November… They have been trained to run a small poultry farm and we hope that this will be a stepping stone for them to start large scale poultries in the near future.