5 Ways to Make Money from Cat Fish Farming in Nigeria
5 Ways to Make Money from Cat Fish Farming in Nigeria
Agriculture is the new oil! Does that line sound familiar? You will agree with me that regardless of how bad the economy is, people must consume farm produce (Fish, Chicken, Goat, Snail etc).
With the recent crash in the price of crude, the Nigerian Government has stressed the need to diversify the Nation’s source of income. One of the diversification measures that the Government has been clamoring for is to invest in Agriculture.
The business of Agriculture is very broad and if I were to discuss it, I would be writing a 500 paged book. For the purpose of this tutorial my emphasis would be on Cat Fish farming. It’s a very lucrative business if you learn the ropes. It’s wise to learn from a professional, otherwise you will end up losing your fishes (don’t mean to scare you).
Over the past years, Nigerians have increasingly consumed the special delicacy (cat fish pepper soup or grilled) prepared with this breed of fish. Hotels, Beer Parlors, Pepper Soup Joints are ordering this specie of fish in large quantities and making lots of money from it.
There are several ways of making money from the cat fish farming business; in this tutorial you would learn about 5 of them. Here’s a summary of what you will learn:
- Five different ways to make money from Cat Fish business.
- Types of Ponds
- How to set up an earthen fish pond.
- Demerits of the business
There are five different ways to make money from the lucrative fish farming business; it doesn’t matter if you have a fat budget to get started or you are working with a lean budget, you can start from where you are and get to where you want to be with this business. The five ways to make money from this business include:
- Hatching: This is the process of producing fingerlings; that’s spawning the male and female cat fishes to reproduce. The hatching process involves some procedures and conditions that should be met in order to register success. They include water management (PH of water etc), temperature, managing the fries till they become fingerlings.
After hatching, you can raise the fries to fingerlings (takes about 4-5weeks) and then sell off for profit. Or you can train them from fingerlings to juveniles (3-4 weeks) before you sell them off. Note: To ascertain your profit, you need to calculate the feeding costs, treatment cost, water management cost etc.
Depending on your budget, you can have a small, medium or big hatchery. The size of your hatchery determines the cost implication. Logically, a small hatchery won’t cost as much as a big one.
- Raising of Table Sized Fish: By table sized fish I mean the one that is big enough for consumption. From the juvenile stage, you can further train your fishes for 3, 4, 5, 6 months (it all depends on the weight you want to achieve) before selling them off. You can get an average of 1kg in 3 months; it depends on the water management, feeding etc.
III. Selling of Fish Feeds: If you have the funds, you can invest in selling of fish feeds. Just like humans need to eat to grow and stay alive, the Catfish also needs good food to aid its growth. There are different kinds of feeds; both locally made and imported, you can obtain distributorship to sell the feed.
In Asaba, Delta state there’s this guy who’s making a killing from the business, he got the sole distributorship for that particular feed in the whole of Asaba; if you want to be a re-seller, you have to go through him.
- Smoking/Drying: Smoking/drying the catfish is another great way of making money from the business. People love smoked fish because of the taste of it. You can buy fishes for cheap, smoke/dry and sell for profits.
- Consulting: You need to know about this business and should have practiced it before going into consulting. It’s not enough to read up some stuffs and assume you are skilled enough to consult in this business; it’s a very practical business so it’s important to be detailed in every aspect.
I’m a fish farmer and I make more money from consulting. I have been doing this business for the past 10 years so I know how it works. A few days ago, I just completed an Earth Pond project (more about this later) for my client in ogwashi-uku axis, see pictures below:
Other ways to make money from a big fish farm include:
– Digging of ponds
– Renting of generator, pumping machines, filters and pipes etc.
– Rendering assistance to farmers who want to harvest their fishes.
– Middle man: Look for big buyers of cat fish, negotiate price and then supply to a cheaper rate. You can buy directly from the fish farmers and sell to end consumers.
What You Need to Know About Raising Table Sized Cat Fishes:
You can’t raise table sized cat fishes if you don’t have a pond. Logically, you need a pond to raise any kind of fish right? There are different types of ponds and they are:
– Earth Pond: The pictures of the pond I posted earlier are an example of an earth pond. It’s called earth pond because it’s natural. The benefits of raising your catfish in an earth pond are:
- It’s cost effective and easier to manage
- It’s less stressful; you don’t have to bother about pumping water and draining since the water comes from the ground.
- The cat fishes raised in the earth pond grow and taste better because they were groomed in a natural habitat.
The best region to site your Earth pond is on a loamy or clayey soil. It’s pertinent you check the nature of the soil and environment to ascertain if you can get water from at least a 4-5ft depth. It’s unwise to site your Earth pond in a region where you can’t get water from the ground at the specified depth because it will cost you more to maintain.
How to Create an Earth Pond:
- Get your piece of land, should measure 20 by 40 in length and width. Can contain between 800 – 1000 fishes.
- Dig the land till you get a depth of 4 to 5ft, at this water should start gushing out; depends on the kind of soil as explained earlier.
- Line the side of the pond with bags of sand to avoid collapsing (this measure should be taken if the soil is not binding enough – sandy soil)
- Use a screading net to cover the surface of the pond to prevent reptiles, birds etc. from eating your fishes. You can also use mosquito net to cover the sides of the nets.
– Concrete Pond: This pond is constructed with the use of cement, and concrete.
– Tarpaulin Pond: This kind of pond is fabricated with the use of tarpaulin.
For the concrete and tarpaulin pond, there’s additional cost incurred because you have to factor the cost of pumping water, changing water etc.
Cat fish business is a very lucrative business and if done well with proper guidance, you can make a lot of money from it regardless of the crumbling economy. If you are interested in cat fish farming business and don’t know how to get started, you can reach Bright {CEO Sapat farms} on 08033408153
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Cheers
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Bright Okorie is a consultant and CEO, Sapat Farms. He has over 10 years of experience in the Cat Fish farming business. you can find him on Facebook here https://web.facebook.com/brite.williams?fref=ts
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