Online Reporter
Sikhulekelani Moyo,Zimpapers Business Hub
A shortage of day-old chicks has emerged in Bulawayo, with unscrupulous suppliers now forcing smallholder farmers to buy their feed as a condition for supplying the chicks.
Typically, poultry farmers begin stocking chicks about six weeks before Christmas to meet the anticipated high demand for chicken meat during this period.
However, investigations by Zimpapers in Bulawayo revealed that the seasonal scarcity of day-old chicks has worsened, leading some producers to impose unfair conditions, forcing farmers to purchase feed alongside the chicks.
The Competition Tariffs Commission has since issued a warning, stating that such practices distort market competition and harm small-scale farmers.
The Zimbabwe Poultry Association has explained the reason behind the shortage, saying that the breeder chickens are expensive to buy and to keep, which makes breeders reduce the stock, as it is costly to have them.
In an interview, Zimbabwe Poultry Association chairperson Mr Tizai Faranisi said, indeed, from September through to mid-November, that is the peak demand for day-old chicks, and year after year, that is the trend.
He said the reason is that people are preparing chickens for Christmas, which need between five and six weeks for the broilers to be raised from day old to about five to six weeks when they weigh between 1,8 to 2 kg.
“So, the process of hatching goes like this. You have the day-old chicks, which are hatched from eggs produced by what we call parent stock. The parent stock, this is the breeding chickens,” explained Mr Faranisi.
“Now, to raise the parent stock, firstly, to buy the day-old chick parent stock costs you US$8. To grow it up to 25 to 28 weeks, when it starts producing eggs that you can put into the machines to produce day-old chicks, you would have spent no less than another US$15 to US$20 dollars depending on things like power cuts, vaccines, feed costs and so on.
“So, all I’m saying is that before the breeders start producing hatching eggs, you would have spent around US$25.”
Mr Faranisi then said breeders are very wary of having too many breeding chickens, which are expensive on the ground and then failing to sell the day-old chicks.
He said they tend to look at their average demand throughout the year, and based on that, that’s what guides them as to how many breeders they need to have.
“If, say for example, you say, okay, let me have a lot of breeders on the ground so that from September through to mid-November, the peak demand, I can supply all the chicks people that want, yes, you can do that. But then after that peak period, you know, what do you do with those hatching eggs? Because the cost of those hatching eggs are anywhere between US$0,40 and US$0,50 US dollar cents per egg,” he added.
“So, people say, ah, you can sell them as table eggs. The cost of a table eggs, a tray of table eggs costs you to produce as a farmer between $US2,50 and US$3. So, if it’s US$2,50 to US$3 and there are 30 eggs on a tray, it means those costs, you are looking at 10 cents per egg compared to 50 cents per egg.
“So, you’ll be bleeding as a hatcher or as a breeder. You find that people say, if there is excess demand, so be it. I can’t take the risk of having to sell eggs from breeders as table eggs post-peak.”
Mr Faranisi said it would be good to supply all the people, all the farmers, the chicks they want, but it becomes very costly for the hatchers and the breeders. saying that after the peak period, these breeders have those eggs, so they try even to discount the price of day-old chicks post-peak period to try and recoup their costs.
“This is the challenge that we have as an industry. And if you ask those farmers who want chicks now, you’ll find that probably 15 to 20 percent of them don’t really keep day-old chicks. They just want them for Christmas,” said Mr Franisi.
“But at the same time, those who normally keep chicks for the peak season, they double their orders, but the breeders don’t really bump up their breeders just to cover three months.
“What you need to realise also is that the lifespan of a broiler breeder is from day-old through to 64 weeks, which is a very long time.”
One of the day-old chick suppliers, Hamara, said the festive chick buzz is now in its final week, saying that most of the farmers who booked with them have all received their chicks.
“We have also included three-week-old birds to help our farmers who struggle with brooding during this wet and hot season, so that they too can have Christmas birds, and the last batch for Christmas teen birds would be the second week of December,” said Hamara marketing manager Ms Bridget Rungu.
However, in high-mortality situations, Mr Faranisi said many farmers do not heed advice on management/ stockmanship as they try to cut costs.
“How can we not want farmers to succeed when we are desperate for repeat business. Even keeping records is a problem,” said Mr Faranisi.
