Wealth is not the presence of excess money, it is the presence of potential, the ability to create different avenues of income. Acquiring two or more sources of income can get very overwhelming because of the processes involved, one has to birth the idea, evaluate the chance of survival and draft out a sustainability plan.
I have taken out time to put out one way to earn extra income through agriculture.
SNAIL FARMING.
Snail farming is the rearing of snail in captivity or enclosure; it involves combining skills, knowledge and technology in farming or raising snails for human consumption.
Conditions are manipulated to resemble that of the wild in order to create a suitable habitat that will enhance the domestication and large scale production of this delicacy in the country.
Snail meat is rich in calcium, phosphorous, iron and copper while the shell is particularly rich in calcium thus very useful in the preparation of poultry feeds.
Feeding: snail food includes grains, waste from food such as maize shaft, plantain peels, succulent vegetables like, cabbage, pawpaw, pineapple, water leaf, cassava,lettuce etc.
Enemies Of Snail: These include termites, soldiers ants, frogs, toads, rats, snail eating birds, lizards, snakes and salt.
Species: there are many snail species but the Giant African Snail (Achatina achatina) is the best owing to its size, growth rate and adaptability to our environment.
Housing: There are many housing method for snail such as wooden hutch,concrete deep hutch and caga or free hutch. Depending on your financial capacity,you can chose any of the following.
ESTIMATE OF STARTING A SNAIL FARM IN NIGERIA
Hutch construction N50, 000 ($84.75)
Breeder snail @500 each x 100 pieces N50, 000 ($84.75).
Feeding per month @4,000 X11 months N44, 000 ($74.6).
Other expenses N11, 000($18.7).
Total cost N180, 000($305) .
In some cases you might need to treat the soil to avoid terminate and other killer insects, that is if you are using concrete hutch and free hutch. But for wooden hutch, you just need to import soil into the hutch.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT (RO1)
Maturity period takes 7 – 12months
Breeder snail lay 300 – 500 eggs at a go and can lay three times in a year in the best condition.
Let assume it lays 50 eggs per one. Taking 50 breeder snail with an allowance of 5% mortality, the 50 snail will give 47x50 eggs = 2,350 egg.
When hatched and reared and allowing 10% mortality in a growing season the snail farm will yield 2, 150 new snails. At maturity, the 2,150 snails can sell for a minimum price of N300($0.5) each 2,150x N300 = N645, 000($1093).
Annual sales of N645, 000($1093)
Net profit =645,000 - 180,000 =465,000($788)
Note : this is when you allow to grow to 8-12 months before selling
Going into the business without knowledge or guidance will result to waste of money.
Thanks for stopping by my blog.