The everyday tools for Poultry Farmers to Detect Diseases and successfully run their daily operations with Poultry Farmers Management System
The day was still young when Henry walked into his poultry farm. He stood speechless as he stared in disbelief. 440 of his chickens were dead.
As devastating and unbearable as it seems, many poultry farmers in Africa go through this ordeal on a daily basis.
Henry Ngale Foretia, CEO of Poultry Farmers Management Systems had a worse experience which later on inspired him to come up with the Save The Chicken App to prevent chicken mortalities in poultry farms.
Loosing almost all his chickens in only a few hours was the most devastating moment for Henry. Being the only source of his livelihood at that time, he stood staring at the dead chickens without hopes for a better tomorrow.
Finally, he decided to call veterinarians to come to his rescue as he continued witnessing losing one chicken every minute. Before any veterinarian could arrive, his flock of 500 chickens had been reduced to just 60. Their survival was still in the balance.
Taking a new turn
The loss grossly affected Henry and he was forced to shut down his poultry farm and relocate to another city in search of greener pastures.
“I relocated to another bigger rural community for job searching. After 7 months of no job, my beloved mother called me. She said to me: Son, I know you are smart and I want you to know that you will someday be part of the change our planet needs. She gave me her little saving which she had saved over time and told me to go and succeed.”
Those words of encouragement were timely and soothing to Henry’s soul. At that time, reviving his poultry business was not an option. So he decided to invest in a less risky business — animal feed productions.
“I went back and started an animal feed business because it was less risky. After 3 years of success, our local university called and proposed to send interns for professional training. When these interns came, we decided to scale my feed business. We surveyed all the 126 farmers we sell animal feed to. 85% of these farmers’ main worries were increasing chicken mortalities and access to a market for their products.”
Moved by the farmers’ plights and deeply touched due to his past experience, Henry decided to collaborate with various stakeholders and tech-savvies to develop a solution.
The solution to chicken mortalities
They came up with a smartphone laboratory that early detects and rapidly diagnoses diseases and situations in poultry much sooner than previously possible.
This app also helps to decrease losses and inhibit the spread of infection to other birds by providing an instant result of diagnosis and friendly treatment advice.
Farmers also receive updates on best practices, vaccination reminders, and real-time predictions of disease outbreaks in every location via the app.
How the app works
To get a quick diagnosis, A Farmer takes a photo of the chicken or feces, the machine intelligence will recognize the disease and it will be confirmed by a certified Veterinarian before the diagnosis goes back to the farmer within 30 seconds plus friendly advice of what to do next.
Ultimately when farmers lose fewer birds to diseases they are able to make more money to support their business. With the increased international attention on livestock farming given the rise of COVID19 and other zoonotic diseases, there will be greater importance of putting diagnostic tools into the hands of farmers, especially as we work to create a more traceable and transparent food system.
They recently added the Batch manager, a poultry farming tool that enables a farmer to keep
records of the events taking place straight away from day 1 of the newly
acquired flock to the time sales are made. It allows
managing and monitoring sales, expenses, vaccination, egg collection, mortality, and daily feeding.
It
offers flock management with birds in flocks categorized as Broilers, Layers,
or Turkeys. With this app installed, it notifies you at each time vaccination
and feeding should be done. At any point in time, a farm performance report is
generated for evaluation. This app will help in profit calculation for round-the-year production. Be able to back up your data and export your data to an
excel or PDF file for other usages. Get periodic reminders about data
entry.
You will find much more
services like;
*
Multiple batches (Separate records for each batch)
*
Expenditure records
* Sales
records
*
Mortality records
* Egg
production records with percentage Calculator
*
Feeding records
* Daily
water intake
*
Vaccination schedules with a reminder
*
Average weight gain
* Light Program
* Calculate daily requirement for your poultry flock
Overcoming the hurdles
Although they have recorded many challenges, Henry believes the will be a light at the end of the tunnel. The startup was selected as a finalist for the thought for food challenge and won the Take It To The Farmer’ Award by Julie Borlaug.
A Billion-Dollar Market
The Cameroon market is only just the beginning for the PFMS team, as they hope to enter into global poultry markets and expand the app to recognize cow and pig diseases in the future as well. Innovations like PFMS’ have great potential to help transform the meat industry to become more trustworthy for consumers and provide stable livelihoods for livestock farmers.
Great initiative
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