From the Field

This story is one in a series from Frances Chisholm highlighting stories of lives impacted by World Poultry Foundation programs and workshops both in the U.S. and abroad. We encourage you to learn more about Ms. Chisholm and our poultry projects in South Africa.

“It’s very crucial to attend,” was Rhulane Hlungwane’s take on the Poultry Production course at the KwaZulu-Natal Poultry Institute in February 2023.   The young South African raises chickens in batches of 300-500 birds.  She sells them, ten at a time, to the live market and also directly from her site.  Rhulane switched gears from town and regional planning to broiler production a year ago but was stymied by her lack of formal poultry training.  She’s grateful that KZNPI instruction went “all in.” 

High mortality had been the young farmer’s biggest challenge before she attended the World Poultry Foundation supported course.  “I didn’t know the cause,” she said.  At KZNPI she learned to check for all signs of illness.  “Check everything, the nostrils, everything, and treat early,” she learned.  “Air quality is also very important; it mustn’t have ammonia.”  

Rhulane also enjoyed the post-mortems and opportunity to identify organs and causes of disease, “I got a lot of information, also on monitoring and regulating the temperature and ventilation.” She is fortunate to be farming in an area with a steady warm temperature but does need to use a gas-run brooder on winter nights when electric power outages occur, and that’s costly.  Securing a steady, high-quality feed supply has been a further challenge.  

Thanks to the KZNPI instruction and numerous precautions she now takes, like religious use of a footbath and turning the sawdust to make sure it is always dry, mortality has fallen below 10 percent, to the young farmer’s delight.

Things are on the up for Rhulane and her broiler production.  Supercharged by the training, she hopes to grow her operation to two batches at a time and a total of 1000 birds.  “There’s plenty of demand in my area,” she exclaimed. 

Good luck, Rhulane.  May you thrive!

Ms. Frances Chisholm
Friend & Supporter of the WPF
Learn More About Frances