This week saw another two chicken broiler projects start, 2 families who have been training with us and are now ready and have their 50 chicks. They continue to train with us for the whole 6 week process as they put into practice what they have learnt in the first 3 weeks with their own chicks. We have also ordered another cage ready for when the chicks reach 2 weeks old. The first chicken project that started is coming to its 6th week and they should soon be ready to start selling, will be good to see the whole process working and for that family to make some income and then invest and continue with a 2nd batch.
Lots of work going on in the garden, spinach has now been transferred into growing beds, along with 2 beds of other greens (kovo) which were given to us by a family friend. We are still having to water 2 or 3 times a day to keep things alive. We will be adding some manure to the beds next week once we have collected it from a neighbour.
The incubator is still working full time, another 20 quails, along with 7 ducklings hatched. Sadly 5 of the ducklings suddenly died, we are not sure why as the other two are fine. We’ve added another 170 quail eggs, 50 duck eggs and are also incubating roadrunner and guinea fowl eggs for other people on a 60/40 share. So we get 40% of the hatchings to help build up our stocks, rather than them paying us cash, which helps us all. We continue to sell quail eggs to several regular customers and have many visitors interested in looking at the quails and starting their own quail projects. So hopefully they will come back to us to buy the quails when they are ready.
We were very grateful to receive some kind unexpected donations this week, which we will put to good use. We have a couple of projects in mind and will update you shortly.
The end of the week was very frustrating and expensive, as we broke down in Harare. We went to renew my visa and expected to return the same day, however, 7 hours by the roadside, three days later, 2 x new fuel pumps, cleaned injectors, loose wires reconnected and a burnt noses, we finally managed to return home. A BIG thank you to family and friends for helping us out and our new friend/mechanic for working all weekend to get us going again.
Ratidzo Trust 