By Benoni Mugarura-Mutana

Joy and I have gone kookoo!

Earlier this year we decided to raise free range chicken at the Joy Center in Wakiso. We were prompted into this venture when a friend brought us a hen that hatched seven chicks.  You cannot imagine our excitement at the thought of starting our own chicken farm.

Joy hired a young man in our village to keep our small food garden and take care of the chicken.  However a few months later the young man fled with the hen and all, but one chick.

The lone chick quickly grew into a proud cock and needed a friend, so we decided to buy another hen. The new hen grew in popularity around the Joy Center.  A tryst with larger cock in the neighborhood led to seven new chicks!

Using Joy’s expertise as a veterinary officer, we built a small chicken house to keep our growing brood.

Jackie, our daughter, visited her mother-in-law in Fort Portal shortly after that and brought us four chicken from the countryside to increase our flock.  Unfortunately she didn’t know they were diseased and soon, they clucked their last and “went to be with the Lord.”

The disease, which we failed to diagnose, spread to the rest of the chicken and so far 14 have died.

We haven’t given up and we’re starting again.  Constance, our niece, gave us a chicken and the farm has begun all over.  We have one cock and four hens. Hopefully soon we’ll have a nest full of chicks and you’ll be invited to your first meal of Wakiso Fried Chicken!

Farmer Joy at the incomplete chicken house