05 Jul 2016

Former Botswana Defence Force (BDF) soldier, Mr Dikgang Mpharitlhe has found life outside the military even better as he makes a living by manufacturing incubators.

The 30-year-old man from Ramotswa said in an interview that he makes egg incubators from old fridges.

Mr Mpharitlhe, who resigned from the BDF in 2013, said he started by rearing Tswana chickens and selling them, then he heard about incubators and he researched in the Internet to get more information  about them.

He said the most important thing he thought about was the foam material found in fridges and started looking for that and collected scrap fridges to start manufacturing incubators.

The young man said it took him a year to make an incubator in 2014 and now he manufactures and sells to customers.

He started by placing an electronic stove in the man-made incubator, placed eggs and controlled temperature using digital thermometre and also checking moisture at all times.

Mr Mpharitlhe said he put in 20 eggs and 18 were correctly hatched, and that was when he started manufacturing incubators using fridges and selling them to customers, some coming from as far as Zambia and Zimbabwe.

He said the price of the incubator was determined by the number of eggs it could hold as well as the size of the fridge. He said most of his customers were existing and upcoming farmers.

Furthermore, he has small incubators which carry about 400 eggs and customers could bring their eggs for him to help with hatching.

His business, just like any others, is faced with challenges, especially customers who fail to pay on time as well as those who try to negotiate to get the products at a lesser price.

Lack of space to operate is also one of his challenges and is temporarily renting the place he is operating at, adding that his vision is to grow his business to a point of owning a manufacturing company and creating more jobs.

He pleaded with the community and companies at large to give him unused fridges and said he was willing to buy them if the price is reasonable.

Mr Mpharitlhe also plans to breed and sell Rhode Island red layers, which have a huge market.

He said his incubator business has helped him a lot as he can afford to pay school fees for his child as well as rent. ENDS