14 Mar 2013

“They need a good balance of the macro-nutrients, carbohydrates, fat, and protein, they also need a broad range of vitamins and minerals,”

Running a business may be challenging but that is never a reason to give up. One businesswoman, Ms Agnes Ratsoma defied the challenges of her business.

Ms Ratsoma, who hails from Pitsane in the Southern District, owns a chicken feed business, Dube Quality Fowl Feeds.

Her business is still afloat and she is optimistic of the future.

In an interview, she stated that she started her business in 2000 and was partly funded by the defunct Financial Assistance Policy (FAP).

She admitted that when she started her business, there were challenges but she managed to persevere.

Ms Ratsoma said she managed to continue with her business because she had hoped that she would succeed.

She said she constantly had shortage of yellow maize, which she often sourced from other farmers.

She said she had realised that she experienced shortage of yellow maize during some seasons due to low yields as a result of poor rainfall.

Ms Ratsoma further said that to minimise shortage of yellow maize, she also ploughs yellow maize in her field, which is a few kilometres from Pitsane.

She further said her success was based on maintaining close relationships and working in partnership with poultry farmers and supermarkets such as Pick and Pay and Choppies.

She said through her hard work, she acquired a contract with Pick and Pay supermarket.

Ms Ratsoma said with so many chicken businesses in her area, she figured out that there was a huge demand for chicken feeds. “That is why I found it important to start this business,” she said.

She said she also started her business because she had love for chickens. She said chickens had nutritional needs that were not different from other living things.

“They need a good balance of the macro-nutrients, carbohydrates, fat and protein, they also need a broad range of vitamins and minerals,” she said.

Ms Ratsoma stressed that nutrition was a critical part of a bird’s environment and a good ration was the foundation of chicken growth.

She said Dube Quality Fowl Feeds ensured a balanced approach to nutrition, which was the key to optimum growth.

Ms Ratsoma said it was long observed that local Tswana chickens survived on scavenging on plant and grain milling leftovers and insects.

Therefore, she said, supplementary feeding was important hence the birth of Dube Quality Fowl Feeds. She said she mixes maize, sorghum and sunflower to prepare the chicken feeds.

She said yellow maize rather than white is preferred to form the base of the final ration given because of its higher nutrition value, especially protein content.

Ratsoma said she used sorghum because it has more fibre and carbohydrates and has ingredients that inhibit its digestibility. She said its inclusion in the fowl rations is deliberately restricted to 20 per cent.

She said she also added sunflower to the feeds to improve the fat content of the ration. She said the sunflower seeds could also be used as both whole seed and crushed.

The product is packed into 2.5 kg 5kg and 10kg and sold to local shops and big chain stores. ENDS