CATFISH VS BROILER FARMING
which is more lucrative ?
A question was asked in a platform in respect to the returns of the highlighted livestock farming. Below are a compilation of responses. This I believe also will help you in your decision (s).
This is more of a debate(opinions) but I urge you to grab the realities.
1.Poultry is easier and cheaper to run compared to catfish. Its also have faster and higher returns compared to catfish.
Focus on poultry first then you can diversify into catfish.
Remember to raise 1000 catfish, you would need more than 800k naira minimum to raise them for 4-5 months. This is outside cost of renting the pond.
2. I am not an expert to say, but i will give opinion based on my experience.
i strongly believe catfish farming is way easier to manage than poultry.
Poultry require keen monitoring right from brooding, vaccination to grow-out.
While in the case of catfish farming you can even be away from your farm for a day or two with proper water management system.
Seasonal demand dependency, poultry has high price fluctuations dependants on festive season. But catfish farming has relatively stable price all year through.
You can process your birds and have it frozen, when they have reached maturity and you cant find a market for it, but remember that refrigeration is still at a cost.
While in the case of catfish you can process by just simply roasting (forget about oven and fancy repackaging, the aboki roasted sandy catfish is still selling without advert)
Diseases? catfish is way easier to manage than poultry.
And finally, who says you must wait till 4 to 6 months to sell your catfish? variour sizes are in demand by different customers.
This is however from my peraonal experience. Also note that no business is “easy” or “risk free” if there is/are, everybody will be doing business. Therefore just try them both on a small scale and see the one that works for you.
3. Pls bro, do poultry if you cannot get a place where you will drain off water everyday, I once built a room size fish pond but when I realized the needs to drain off water everyday and my place is not having drains and far from canal I quickly converted the fish pond to poultry for 100 broilers from day old now 32 days to be sold for Xmas.
