25 Feb 2018

Heavy rains that have been falling since last week in Francistown and surrounding areas have left a trail of destruction in Monarch location, especially among poultry farmers who ply their trade on the banks of the Ntshe River.

With the river overflowing from the continuous rains and the location of the farms in the low lying area of the river bank, this was bound to happen.

On February 22 night, the torrential rains dumped record rainfall killing ready for slaughter chicken belonging to self-financing businesses operated by two women, Ms Motlhaleemang Majadibodu and Ms Tsholofelo Kebabonye respectively.

The copious amounts of water encroached inside the poultry houses and killed large numbers of chicken.

For Ms Majadibodu, the rain has brought misery as her self-funded project is just four months old, and was promising to bring dividends when disaster struck.

She had 200 chicken but 30 of them died due to the cold as a result of the water.

To add to her woes, she had six weeks worth of chicken feed worth P6 000 which also has been damaged.

When the flood affected her business, she had already sold twice and was looking for her third sale which unfortunately has gone to the wind.

“I am left with 168 chickens and looking at the situation I have taken the decision to slaughter the remaining ones. I know I will make a loss, but with the rain forecasted to continue until the end of next month, I have no choice,” she explained.

She noted that she would consider starting again after the rainy season as she has nowhere to relocate the remaining birds.

However, the mishap that has happened to her poultry business was not the first incident.

In December 2017, she said robbers attacked the business and made away with 49 chicken and she did not recover them.

She also mentioned that she met with members of the disaster committee who advised her to find a safe place as the river bank was risky, especially during the rainy season.

She operates from a rented property and asserted that she has applied for government financial assistance programmes to no avail.

At Monarch Poultry, Ms Kebabonye suffered the most devastating setback as she lost 205 chickens.

The meteorological services department has forecasted more rain to fall until the end of March. ENDS