Christine Miyogo is the proprietor of Misega Farm Limited, a pig breeding farm in Embu.
She ventured into pig farming in 2014 while living in Kajiado shortly before relocating to Embu in a bid to tackle challenges such as waste management.
Over the years, Christine’s venture had grown ans she currently sells about 50 animals to Farmers Choice monthly with hopes of introducing weekly sales.
Here is her story as told by EAFeed.
Christine ventured into pig farming over a decade ago after seeing an opportunity to import boars and sows from other countries such as South Africa.
Although she admits that the initial stages were challenging, Christine and her husband were determined to make it big with this new venture.
“It was very tough as my husband and I were still in formal employment with little knowledge and information on piggery,” she said.
To elaborate more on some of the challenges that the couple encountered, Christine said they sold their first stock of animals at nine months, each weighing 35kg each, not realising that it was below the optimum.
It was at this point that one of her customers urged her to venture into piggery full-time instead of practicing it as a side-hustle.
“We didn’t even know which breed we had bought. The second mistake we made was the failure to carry out proper research on what successful piggery entails,” Christian said.
After making a few mistakes in the initial stages of her business, Christine visited several pig farms both locally and in countries such as Uganda.
In the end, she picked breeds from Uganda which gave her good results.
After getting the right breeds, Christine faced waste management challenges forcing her to move her pigs from Kajiado to Embu.
She also had to deal with rogue employees who would steal pig feeds.
“We had to sack all employees and bring in new ones and despite the investment in new breeds and stocking of commercial feeds, we were still not getting the results we wanted in terms of product and weight gain,” Christine said.
Christine went back to the drawing board and arrived to a conclusion which saw her travel to South Africa and Zambia to buy other breeds with hopes of boosting production.
Despite getting better results, she stressed that they were yet to reach the optimum production level and break even.
“For one to attain profitability, it takes a journey office years, and if you do not know how the business goes, you end up making losses due to lack of information,” she opined.
At her Embu farm, Christine has grown from nine sows while relocating there, to 36 highbred sows.
“When I look at piggery and layers of chicken, they complement each other. The raw materials we use for piggery are the same ones we will use for layer chicken feed production,” she explained.
Misega Farm is hoping to increase the numbers of sows from 36 to 94 in order to introduce weekly sales of the animals.
“Right now, when we look at the date of the piglets that get crashed at birth, the number is quite high, not to mention hygiene issues and mechanisation and automation will enable us to reduce our veterinary costs and reduce our workforce,” Christine said.
