Houses have been modernised and are kept clean, tidy and well ventilated in the hot climate of Botswana.


Brown breeds. There was a problem with sourcing birds at one stage and we had to bring in a white hen which was guaranteed to lay a brown egg. “In order to increase the welfare of the bird we only keep three of the birds in each cage and we normally keep a chick- en for about one year. Our average laying percentage is around 80% and we try to keep it at that level if we can,” he said. All of the hens are usually sourced at point of lay stage from breeders in South Africa. They are fed layers mash which is also imported from South Africa as well. Birds are all vacci- nated against Newcastle Disease and there has never been any issue with bird flu there. “As we cannot grow any signifi- cant areas of cereals in this Botswana bush we are forced to import all the feed for the hens from South Africa,” added Rowly. “This inevitably increases our cost of production but there is nothing we can do about that.”


Resurrect the old business “The laying unit was first started back in 1990,” said Rowly.


“We ran it for six years and then sold the business to a poultry specialist company that took it over. “However, they stopped about ten years later and the houses lay empty until we de- cided to resurrect the business again in 2013. “More of the houses need upgrading and we will modernise them gradual- ly. Right now the system is working well and there are not so many issues with the egg business,” he said. “Of course the prices could improve and that would be a good help.” Temperatures can hit 40°C in this region of Botswana there- fore the hens must be kept well ventilated. The Mungers also


discovered a novel way of keeping the birds cooler. “The sides of the poultry houses open up so we can regulate the tem- peratures inside,” said Rowly. “It can get pretty hot here so we must monitor the temperature throughout the day. “We also found that by painting the tin roof of each house with white paint naturally dropped the temperature inside the house down by a few degrees. “It was another cheap way of con- trolling the environment for the birds inside their houses. Ob- viously at night we close up the houses as it does get a bit cooler when the sun goes down.” The manure from the hen houses also doesn’t go to waste as it is sold to market gardeners and used on their own fields. “There is big demand for the manure as a rich fertiliser,” add- ed Rowly. “It certainly works well in combination with our soils to grow vegetables.” Botswana strives to be a nation that produces the majority of the food it needs itself and is cur- rently 95% self-sufficient in poultry meat and eggs. There are not so many egg producers in the Francistown region hence why the Munge family experience big demand for their eggs and have such a wide delivery area to work in.


▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 6, 2019


Rowland Mung- er lifts the first egg of the day at Wayside Brah- man Stud in Botswana.


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