Although
this topic has been trending since the beginning of this year, there are a few
facts that most publishers don't have a perfect understanding of. As a matter
of facts, the idea of keeping quails in Kenya did not originate from the west
as some people claim. In fact it was practiced even before hand only that it
was out of the camera glare. To be clearer, it was done by some communities, of
which I don't need to mention names.
So
how was Quail Keep done in Kenya?
Out
of experience, there is one unique quail keeping strategy that always makes me
respect Africans especially the less educated. The word was clear right from
childhood I was told; that quails were among the most popular and widely known
birds, I would say may-be the believe is has direct links to the bible story
which we used hear in those Sunday school days. So with this respect, it was
not right to domestic the bird, an ideas that I latter come to disapprove.
Yes,
the birds ware not directly kept at home or into cages, but they were tamed
using food. Isn’t that ridiculous? See, it's clear, a special feeding zone was
set aside and the birds would come to feed every day, then return to the
forest. The people who kept the practice were mature and mostly the bread
winners of the family who trapped the birds one by one for food. Get the idea?
So it was that, a certain family was known to have the most of these birds,
while others less. The one with many quails way considered blessed, although
the quails spend most of their time in the forest.
You
may ask why the birds were important to the community?
As
obvious, they were kept for food. Quail meat was highly valued and esteemed
despite its natural sweatiness. To this day, it's taken that whoever gives you
some quail meat delicacy that person must have respected you highly. See, this
is natural and unique and if you don't know, such communities have some special
values placed on some animals. So when someone gives quail, some superstitious
Kenyan communities believe it’s a way of creating strong bonds of friendship.
Additionally,
it was known from since time in memorial that quail meat has some medicinal
values. A fact that has been lately approved by the most respected world's nutritionists.
in fact there are lots of published scientific contents that encourages the use
of quail meat, not only in Kenya but globally.
According
to these scientists, quails have extreme adaptation mechanism in their system
that makes them resistance to all forms of diseases. In fact up to this far not
a single disease has been known to infect the bird. Doesn’t that astonish! This
has made some doctors and even lowers to turn into keeping quails for money.
Here
is a little math for those interested with keeping quails for money within
Kenya. Everything calculates in Kenya Shilling.
A female
quail bird lays roughly 25 eggs per month, one quail egg costs 30 - 45/= which means
in a month you can pocket a whooping 1000/=. Of which the market for quail eggs
in guaranteed. A single female mature-quail costs roughly 400-500/=. You can
decide to buy an incubator of your own instead of buying the already hutched
chicks.
Assume
you get one incubator with the capacity of keeping 70 quail eggs; you will only
wait for 16 day to have a new set of 70 chicks. Thus, the larger the number of incubators,
the more the chances of you having a greater number of birds. And this also
directly translates to how much you can earn by just keeping quails right here in
Kenya.
Labels: Job Creation in Kenya
