Entrepreneur sees his income soaring high with doves business

High demand for doves, especially among churches drove Dennis Chege, to quit his job and focus on the venture.

“I decided to quit my job last year to look after my birds due to high demand and ready market considering I had no assistant and my wife was overwhelmed selling wares on a general shop we co-own,” says Mr Chege, a former Information Technology employee of St Andrew’s School, Turi in Molo, Nakuru County.

Mr Chege, 30, bought a pair of doves, a male and female for Sh100 from his mother as a young boy in 1998 to keep them as pets. However, later in 2008, he started to commercialise them as a side hustle on his farm in Meru.

With a dove laying two eggs, it takes only 18 days to hatch into squabs. Within three months, they are mature to start laying eggs and the life cycle continues.

Mr Chege has since increased his stock to 1,000 birds and he is not able to meet the demand, which he says keeps rising.

He rears various breeds of pigeon such as Fantails' doves — which he sells to churches — and the parrot beak doves which are kept as pets.

The entrepreneur sells a pair of doves for Sh1,000 to churches especially the Catholic, wedding planners, and individuals who keep them as ornamental pets, among other interested customers.

“I sell between 50 and 60 pairs of the birds in a month, making an average of between Sh50,000 and Sh60,000,” says Mr Chege.

He says the business is less demanding than keeping chicken since he always releases the birds in the morning to search for food. In the evening they come back to the cage, he says.

The cost of keeping one chicken, he says can cost as much as Sh450 a month, while one dove costs a maximum of Sh75.

“Keeping doves requires less space, they can even be kept in a rental house. Even small boxes are enough to start with the rearing process. I keep them in open and closed cages,” says Mr Chege.

He also feeds them on grass, remains of wheat, grit and pulses, which are readily available in his farm.

He also spends Sh7,500 on grade II flour, which he cooks for the birds.

“The birds are free with me in a way that I can hand-pick them without struggle and closely observe the state of their health,” the farmer says.

He vaccinates them against Newcastle disease, one of the most dangerous infections.

According to the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro), Newcastle disease is a major setback to bird production in Kenya and often causes between 80 and 100 percent mortality in unvaccinated flocks.

Aside from doves, he also keeps bantams, ornamental birds with feathers on their feet and eyes.

Mr Chege’s inspiration is the former Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo, who owns a bird farm called Ota. From this, he earns 172.5 million naira (Sh48.2m) a week from an analysis by Kunle Sowunmi , a New York-based writer.

Mr Chege’s plan is to increase his flock from 1,000 doves to 5,000 with a mixture of other ornamental birds.

He advises people not to solely rely on employment in the urban centres but to also invest in their rural homes.

“Some of my friends who could not believe me when I told them that I was going back to my rural home to do farming get shocked when they visit my farm,” he says.

“This business has the potential to sustain a good living.”

- African Laughter