Top 10 most profitable livestock farming business in Nigeria you can start
All over the world, Agriculture is a business sector that cannot be set aside. Generations to generations have come and gone and more will still come to practice Agriculture. Most people work for many years serving the government, though they get paid and probably are entitled to pension but this cannot be passed on to their next generation. But practicing agriculture can be passed on to your children because human population is fast growing. In Nigeria alone, according the Vice President, we have a yearly increase of 5 million people in our population.
How do we produce enough food to meet up this ever increasing human population density? That is what makes Agriculture a top notch venture that can make you wealthy, and give you great profits.
In this article, I will list out 10 profitable animal business you can consider to venture in in Nigeria in order to make decent profit.
Before anyone would think of what to wear, house to build, cars to buy, they think of food to eat first. The demand for food has ever been on the increase. No one can do without food, you won’t say because you ate last night, you wouldn’t eat today, even if you are fasting you will break the fast. It cannot be forever.
What are the Most Profitable Livestock Business Ventures in Nigeria today?
Poultry Farming
Fish Farming
Cattle Farming
Pig Farming
Sheep and Goat Farming
Rabbit Farming
Grasscutter Farming
Honey bee Farming
Snail Farming
Camel Farming.
Here you have the list of 10 most profitable livestock Farming Business ventures in Nigeria today, I also recommend you read this list of Agric Business you can start with #100,000 in Nigeria today.
The Wealthy Opportunity in Livestock Farming Industry;
The livestock industry is one embodied with great wealth in it. And it is time young Nigerians open their eyes to see the opportunities in it and key into it.
I will talk about few of the ventures mentioned above, just so as to open your eyes to see the goldmine in these ventures.
Generally speaking, investing into livestock production involves buying the animals at a young age and selling them at maturity or market stage, it could also mean buying the mature animal to serve as parent stock to produce offspring that would be sold in exchange for money. Animals are slaughtered everyday all over the country, hence making the demand for livestock constant, if more are not reproduced, the animal specie will go into extinction. As a farmer, your job is to ensure that you keep multiplying the population of your animals, because it is reproduction that bridges the gap for multiplication. So you have to ensure that the animals are being multiplied in order to always be available in the market.
Let’s look at Poultry farming
Chicken has been among the most consumed animal protein across the globe. I remember some years back the Nigerian government had to import frozen chicken in order to meet up with the high demand for this product in the country, because greater population in the country demands for it and we cannot meet it yet. But fortunately for us, last year, the Nigerian government had to barn the importation of chicken thereby creating opportunities for Nigerian farmers to invest in poultry as they now slaughter and make direct sales to their customers.
Yuletide season are always characterized with huge demand for chicken and other meat, but it favours chicken the most.
There are two sides to the Poultry coin, and that is, Meat and Egg, these two are of great importance and we cannot separate them. Despite the high price of egg, it’s demand has always been on the increase daily because egg has become a major part of our meal
When I started poultry layer birds, I had customers who paid in advance for eggs that has not been counted and even those that has not been laid yet, because they don’t want to miss out, they want to get the eggs early enough. The demand was very high and of course it was really profitable. I know as a business man you will agree that investing into a business with high demand is more profitable than a business you are still trying to create awareness for.
Currently now, a crate of egg sells for #1800 (as at today), if you have 1,000 Layer Birds and they lay an average of 950 eggs per day, 30 eggs make up one crate, that is like 31 crates per day, 31 x 1800 = #55,800.
So you can be making #55,800 daily, and when your birds are well taken care of, you can make more profits because they will lay more, some will even lay 2 eggs per day.
Let’s see how much you will make per month; 55,800 x 30days = #1674,000
Now let’s look at the meat production(Broilers)
A day old broiler is currently #300, so if you buy 1000 that is #300000. So you’ll raise them to 5 to 8
weeks of age, at this stage they are ready for consumption. There are many restaurants hotels looking for chicken, you can decide to supplying them.
Based on the current feed price, one broiler will most likely sell between 6k to 7500 each this Christmas, so let’s say, you sold 1000 broilers, how much will that be?
1000 x 6000 = #6,000,000. That is 6million, you cannot even spend up to 2million to feed them for 2month, is not possible, can you see how profitable poultry Business is in Nigeria?
I have people who buy live chicken from farmers, kill and dress them and sell as frozen chicken in Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, and other major cities in Nigeria.
On one of the Whatsapp group, someone demanded for 20,000 BROILER chicken, those are the people that kill and convert to frozen chicken, they want to buy as much as possible from farmers.
Spent layers(old layers) is also money. People buy them in large quantity, for about N1800 to N2000 per one, if you have many birds that have stopped laying, you can sell them out. You can also sell your poultry droppings to vegetable farmers as it serves as a very good manure for the vegetables. So, everything is money for you.
Let’s look at cattle farming
In Nigeria today, cattle is mainly practiced by the Northerners, but the do it in the nomadic way, by carrying their cattle from city to city, this makes it unpleasant and undesirable to others because the herds men look poor even though they make alot of money from it and their method of rearing the animals seems stressful and unpleasant. But you can practice rearing of cattle in a more enticing way, you can change your own method of rearing them and make a fortune from it. Cattles can be reared under intensive care in a confined environment with good management. They will grow faster and give you a great return on your investment.
Do you know one cattle is been sold up to #300,000, #500,000 and even 1million, 1.5million just one cattle? That’s how profitable the business is, you cannot afford to ignore it.
Fortunately, cattles are ruminant so you don’t need to spend alot on their feeding, and Nigeria is full of celebrations and ceremonies, so there will always be demand for beef.
The market is permanently available, you are the one to position yourself for it, as much as you can raise and breed, you will make good money, this business has huge ROI.
In order to get started, you need land with enough space and pasture, a clean source of water, it could either be a well or a borehole dug by you for this purpose, to enhance water flow if you’ll be going commercial.
You can get small ones between 100 to 150k, depending on where you are buying from, but if you have a link with the north, you can buy directly and at a reduced price, bring them to your farm, and start breeding them, get a vet doctor to inject and disinfect them periodically, especially with antibiotics so as to enhance their growth and development.
Major wealthy people in Nigeria and those with big family cycle prefer to buy cattle during Christmas and other celebration, the same thing applies to wedding ceremony and other kind of ceremonies.
The market for cattle in Nigeria is vast, and we cannot exhaust it, Lagos alone has 10 Abattoirs where cattle are slaughter daily, for daily consumption and majority of those animals came from the north, if you have them in the south west, they will patronize you.
Let’s look at Pig farming;
This is another goldmine venture in Nigeria, do you know people come from neighboring countries to buy Pigs in Nigeria? Do you know that we have the pig estate in oke-aro in Lagos, where there is such a huge land space designated for pig rearing alone?
Investing in pig farming has a huge return as pigs are very prolific and they are not limited to eating just one type of food and it doesn’t cost so much to get started with pig farming, the demand is huge and ever increasing annually.
I have so many people around me whom this is what they do for a living, they feed themselves and their family from pig farming.
They are successful and doing well, pig farming is a vast industry in Nigeria, with room for newcomers, the space and market share is very large. Someone asked me for 50 pigs last month (25 females and 25 males) I didn’t have them on ground in my farm and most of the farmers I called didn’t have them either.
Some had sold theirs before I called while those who had said they wanted to keep them for next year’s production plan.
Each was to be sold at #40,000, so that would have been 40,000 x 50 = 2million naira.
That is market looking for product, yet it was not available, this is just to give you a glimpse of what the pig industry looks like, I know people in Nigeria who sells up to 100 pigs at a go, it is a rewarding venture and it is worth every effort.
Let’s look at Rabbit farming
Though rabbit is small and friendly and a very good per for many, do you know it is also a goldmine?
I have been farming rabbit for the past 5years now so I have experience on breeding, production and marketing of rabbit, it is very profitable and highly rewarding indeed.
I have shared on this blog before, how that I made millions of Naira from selling rabbit in Nigeria, just like every other Business.
Rabbits are categorized into 2 stages in terms of the market, we have the breeding stocks and the meat market.
As the awareness of the health benefit of rabbit meat is growing, people are demanding for it the more, so also the need to breed rabbit either for commercial purpose or as a source of protein for family at home, is causing more people to look into the direction of rabbit production, and that is making the demand to grow and increase in Nigeria. Rabbit does not cost a fortune either, you can start with a small cage of 10 rooms at your backyard, and with little space, you can raise a lot of rabbit conveniently at home, click here to read more on rabbit Farming.
What do you need to start a Livestock Business/Farm?
1. Land
For you to successfully practice Agriculture you need land, you can either buy a land or lease one. I know you might want to start at your backyard, it is a good choice, I started that way some years back but the challenge with it is that, it cannot do much, and also by the time the business starts blooming, you and your landlord might get into logger heads with each other, so in order to have peace of mind, it’s better to secure a land for your farm as it will enhance your expansion. Also watch out for the location of your land, for instance; you cannot run pig within an environment where there are residential houses, the smell may create enmity in the community, you will need to look for land far away or in the bush, where nobody will disturb you or your investment.
2. Capital: You need capital to run any agricultural Business, without capital you can’t do it, most people that desire to start a Business, this is always where the challenge comes in, most times, they lack the required capital to get started. But there are many ways you can raise money for your Business, this includes:
family and friends,
investor (other people’s money),
bank loan(microfinance or cooperative),
savings(you can save money ahead of your plan)
My advice to beginners in farming Business is to always start small, especially if you are just coming into the Business, because you are dealing with livestock, as profitable as it is, it has challenges too, just like we have in every other businesses, out there. You may not be able to raise all the capital you need, but no matter how little start from somewhere, you will learn along the line and grow with the process.
3. It’s surprising how people starts business without knowledge of what it entails, it is advisable to get tutoring before starting anyone business, read books, go for one-on-one training. You cannot learn everything online and if you start it without enough knowledge, there is the tendency of failing woefully, if you want to learn on your own, you may lose your investment and regret ever starting the Business in the first place. This simply means, You need a mentor.
4. Feasibility study: This is a form of market research, it is similar to point 3, but in this case, you are not just trying to acquire knowledge on how to run and raise the animals in your farm, you are researching to know what the market density looks like, is there market for it? How large is the market? where is the market concentrated the most? How can I tap into the market? How much do they sell and buy? how big is the demand? what does it cost to raise so so numbers of animals? When do I look forward to the return on my investment? these are the questions you need to ask and do your feasibility study on.
5. Staff: in a standard Agric farm, there is the need for staff. You can start the farm alone but as the business enlarges, you will not be able to run the farm alone, you will get to a stage where the effort of others will be needed.
Now, you have to be careful and sensitive in making this selection because their effort can make your farm successful or can ruin the entire investment at the end of the day, I have seen cases where staff stole money till they ruined the farm, I have also seen cases, where staff kept stealing eggs till they could not account for profits anymore, they give the owner various excuses as to why the birds are not laying well, whereas they are the ones stealing the eggs.
So you have to be sensitive in selecting staff on your farm, do not allow them work alone, visit unawares, inspect to see how things are going on the farm.
6. Transportation System: Finally, you will need a vehicle to convey goods to the farm and from the farm. Especially if your farm is sited far away from the city, you need to transport goods to your customers. If you have to use public transit, it will cost you more but if it’s your own vehicle you will safe more. Although you may not start with this, but along the line you will need a vehicle(s) for the farm.
I always recommend the Hilux pickup, as it can move even in adverse road location, it can still climb some hills too, making it easy for you to transport within farm and the city.
I am wishing you all the best, I believe you must have learnt one or two things from this information, if you have any question, you can drop it below.
Written by Akanni Tolulope Matthew.
For further help and Consultancy, you can call or WhatsApp me on 07066784204.