Layer Farming

Poultry egg and meat are important sources of high quality proteins, minerals and vitamins to balance the human diet. Specially developed breeds of egg type chicken are now available with an ability of quick growth and high feed conversion efficiency. Increasing assistance from the Central/State governments and poultry corporations is being given to create infrastructural facilities so that new entrepreneur takes up this business. Layer farming has been given considerable importance in the national policy and has a good scope for further development.

Financial assistance available from banks/NABARD

• Loan from banks with refinance facility from NABARD is available for starting poultry farming. For obtaining bank loan the farms should apply to the nearest branch of a Commercial or Cooperative or Regional Rural Banks in there area in the prescribed application forms which is available in the branches of financing banks. The technical officers attached to or the manager of the bank can help/give guidance to the farmers in preparing the project report to obtain bank loan.
• For poultry farming schemes with very large outlays, detailed reports will have to be prepared. Banks provide financial assistance for the following purposes:

1. For construction of brooder/grower and layer sheds, feed store, quarters etc.
2. For purchase of poultry equipment such as feeders, waterer, brooders etc.
3. For creating infrastructure items for supply of electricity, feed, water etc.
4. For purchase of day old chicks or ready to lay pullets.
5. For meeting working capital requirement in respect of feed, medicines and veterinary aid etc. for the first 5 to 6 months (i.e. till the stage of income generation).

However, if land is purchased for establishing a poultry farm, land cost can be treated as party’s margin upto a maximum of 10% of total cost of project.

Scheme formulation for bank loan

• A scheme can be prepared by the beneficiary after consulting local technical persons of State Veterinary department, poultry corporation or private commercial hatcheries.
• The scheme should include information on land, water and electricity facility, marketing aspects, training facilities and experience of entrepreneurs and the type of assistance available from State government, poultry corporation, local hatcheries. It should also include data on proposed capacity of the farm, total cost of the project margin money to be provided by the beneficiary, requirement of bank loan, estimated annual expenditure, income and profit and the period for repayment of loan and interest.

Scrutiny of scheme by the bank

After the scheme is submitted to the bank it is examined for technical feasibility and economic viability. Other documents such as loan application forms, security aspects, margin money requirement etc. are also examined.

Sanction of bank loan and its allocation

After ensuring technical feasibility and financial viability the scheme is sanctioned by the bank. The loan is allocated in kind in 2 or 3 stages against the creation of specific assets such as construction of sheds, purchase of equipment and machinery, recurring cost during growing period on purchase of first batch of chicks, feed, medicines and vaccines, electricity and water, labour expenses etc. Constant follows up and supervision of the scheme is done by the bank.

Leading terms-general

Unit cost

Each Regional Office (RO)_of NABARD has constituted a State Level Unit Cost Committee under the Chairmanship of RO in charges and with the members from developmental agencies, commercial banks and cooperative banks to review the unit cost of various investments once in six months.

Margin money

NABARD has defined farmers into three different categories and where subsidy is not available the minimum down payment as shown below is collected from the beneficiaries.

Sr. No.	Loan amount	CB’s & RRB’s	SLDB/SCB
a)	Upto and inclusive of Rs. 25,000	12.0%	As determined by SCB/SLDB subject to Min. of 12% (for all loan slabs)
b)	Over Rs. 25,000 and upto Rs. 2 lakhs	13.5%	-do-
c)	Over Rs. 2.0 lakhs	As determined by CB/RRB	-do-

Interest Rate (approx.)

As per the RBI guidelines the present rates of interest to the ultimate beneficiary financed by various agencies are as under:

Security

Security will be as per NABARD/RBI guidelines issued from time to time.

Repayment of loan

Repayment period depends upon the gross surplus in the scheme. The loan will be repaid in suitable monthly/quarterly installments usually within a period of seven to eight years with first year as grace period.

Insurance

The birds and other assets (poultry sheds, equipment) may be insured.

ECONOMIC OF LAYER FARMING-(APPROX.)

Sr. No.	Particulars
1	No. of birds in lay	1500
2	Rearing period (weeks) Brooding cum growing period (weeks) Laying period (weeks)	72 20 52
3	No. of batches	3
4	Space requirement per bird (s.ft.) Brooding cum growing period Laying period	1 0.8
5	Cost of construction (Rs./s.ft.) Brooding cum growing shed Laying shed	70
6	Store room (sq.ft.)	100
7	Cost of construction of store rooms (Rs./sq.ft)	90
8	Equipment cost (Rs./bird) Brooding cum growing house Laying house-cages	7 35
9	Mortality (%) Brooding cum growing house Laying stage	6 7
10	Cost of DOCs (Rs./chick)	14.1
11	Supply of free chicks (%)	3
12	Extra chicks purchased (%)	3
13	Feed requirement (Kg./bird) Brooding cum growing stage Laying stage	7 38
14	Feed cost (Rs./kg.) Chick/grower mash Layer mash	7 6.70
15	Labour cost	Family labour
16	Over heads cost (Cost of litter, electricity, medicines,vaccine,insurance etc.) Brooding cum growing stage (Rs./bird) Laying stage (Rs./bird)	5.5 7
17	Egg production	295
18	Egg price (Rs./egg)	1.20
19	Average body wt. of culled birds (Kg.)	1.5
20	Sale price of culled bird (Rs./bird)	38
21	Income from manure (Rs./bird) Brooding cum growing stage Laying stage	1.15 5.85
22	No. of gunny bags per ton of feed	13.3
23	Income from gunny bags (Rs./bag)	6
24	Depreciation on shed (%)	5
25	Depreciation of equipment (%)	10
26	Margin money (%)	25
27	Interest rate (%)	15
28	Repayment period (years)	8
29	Grace period (years)	1
30	Construction period (months)	3
31	Rest period (weeks) Brooding cum grower house (weeks) Laying house (weeks)	4 4