Chicken Run: CiH Chicken Farming Initiative

Well, our income-generation programming has officially evolved to the next level.  Bright and early (this) Friday morning, we drove to the chicken store and brought home 51 of our newest friends.  That’s right, 51, because if you buy 50 chicks, you get 1 free.  What a deal.  Seriously, though, they’re really fun and we’re excited to have them. The whole reason we decided to start a chicken project was for small-scale income generation for Clothed in Hope.  Basically, we’ll raise the infant chicks (who are 1 day old) and gradually sell off the extra chickens until we have 10 remaining… because we only have room for 10 full-grown egg-laying hens. We ended up with 51 because the smallest quantity available to buy is 50.  So if any of you readers know anyone in Lusaka, Zambia who’d like 40 baby hens, we’ve got them and we’ll sell them for cheap—we’ll even raise them until they have feathers.

Once the “layers” get older, the Chikondi women will sell the fresh Chikondi eggs to help fund the Clothed in Hope programs in Lusaka, and give them more experience with running a small business.   We’re excited (especially Farmer Wyatt) and we can’t wait to begin this new income-generating project.

Don’t worry, everyone, we did our research and took intensive training classes from Google University and from urban chicken-raising extraordinaires, Landon & Jordan Thompson of Columbia, SC, who recently came to volunteer with us in July. Our caretakers, Eddie and James, are also pretty excited to try their hand at chicken farming as a caretaker resume-booster.

Big thanks the group from Midtown Fellowship who visited us and gave us the seed money to launch this new initiative. We can’t wait to connect with even more people in the Ng’ombe community through our chick and egg sales, and look forward to the chicken-farming journey to come.

Warm Regards, Wyatt Zambia Operations Director