Changing Lenses — Farmscapades
This is the fourth project in the “Changing Lenses” series, where I put on the lenses of an interesting individual, demography, profession, etc. and live like them for a period. Afterwards, I write about the experience and lessons I learned from them.
This is the first part of a 2 part series.
Prologue — 6th April, 2018
It was negotiation day. We had a meeting scheduled for 1pm at Mr & Mrs Obinna’s office to discuss the terms of a potential partnership on a smoked fish processing venture. There was some traffic around VI so we arrived at the office of the Obinnas about 15 minutes late. We had to wait for another 30 minutes as they were still in a meeting that had overshot its time. When we finally entered their office, they seemed really excited to see us. We exchanged pleasantries, they offered us bottles of soda which we accepted, and we got right down to it.
They agreed to finance the entire project. 2 ponds and a fish cleaning/processing area was to be constructed on their farm, a smoking kiln purchased and installed, then other accessories (drums, basins, nets, scale, etc.) to be purchased as well. Frankly, it wasn’t going to cost a lot of money — under 2 million Naira — but it was a nice gesture nonetheless. They also agreed to help with the marketing, using their sales vans and already existing relationship with potential customers. All we had to do was supervise and ensure the quality of the constructions and purchases, manage supply of fresh fish into the farm and help with building new sales/marketing relationships. So far so good…
7th May, 2017
A bunch of my secondary school classmates had slept over after the mini house party I hosted the previous night. The party was lit! So lit that Ifeanyi, and a couple others who didn’t sleep over, visited again that morning to join the ongoing FIFA tournament. Although I didn’t make it past the first round, yea I kinda suck at FIFA, it was all so much fun.
Later that evening, when the crowd had reduced significantly, Ifeanyi called me into the room and asked me “Chuka, what exactly do you do?” it took me a while to convince him that while I didn’t have a regular 9–5, I wasn’t a ‘Yahoo boy’. In the course of our conversation, I learnt that he is a Catfish farmer. Initially, this was just a piece of interesting information. However, turns out this was to be the beginning of my ‘farmscapades’.
First Encounter
It started with an inquiry on snail farming for a friend. But when Ifeanyi showed me a picture of the makeshift snail pen he was constructing, and then of the new batch of snails he was starting with, the animal lover in me took over. I knew I had to visit the farm and learn all I could about his animals. Turns out I have really good fortune as over the course of the next year, I learnt a lot about a variety of animals from different farmers.
My first trip to the farm started on a sour note. I went with Scoff (God bless his memory) & Jolene. It was the first time they were on a road trip longer than 30 minutes. By the time we got to the farm, they had both puked all over the back seat and floor of the car. I spent another 30 minutes cleaning up the mess, pissed, but I knew it wasn’t their fault. After the clean-up, as soon as we stepped into the farm, I let them off their leash and my mood immediately brightened. They started chasing hens, lizards, smelling grasses, digging holes, their excitement was palpable, uncontrollable. It was a beautiful sight to behold. It immediately strengthened my resolve to own a farm of my own in future. I made a mental note to myself.
Ifeanyi started showing me around the farm. It was on 4 plots of land. The first 3 plots was all ponds, except for the line of small rooms for the farm hands and smoking area with a make shift kiln for drying the fish. There were a total of 60 ponds, each with a volume of about 15,000 litres. It was awesome! We went round the ponds; in about 20 of them, there were fish at different stages in their development: from post fingerlings to mélange size and some shooters in a plastic pond. The rest of the ponds were empty and the tarpaulin lining of some of them had started cracking. This was a warning sign I would later learn to recognize. Afterwards, he took me to see his makeshift snail pen and the third plot, where Garba (the farm hand) planted vegetables. After going round the ponds, I met his partner and their farm hands. We talked for a bit, then by past 4pm, I headed back home with Ifeanyi, Scoff & Jolene. By far the biggest highlight of that first trip was how much fun Scoff & Jolene had. I’d always planned to own a farm, but now I couldn’t wait any longer.
Little crawly animals…
Ifeanyi sent me some documents and videos on Snail farming — species, feeding, shelter, market, etc. I read and watched and with each passing day, I understood snails better and my fascination for those little crawly animals grew. A few weeks later, Ifeanyi suggested we visit Snail Care, a snail farm we stumbled upon on YouTube who seemed to know their stuff. Cajethan, one of the brothers who run the farm, was a smooth talker who convinced us to part with a N7000 “consultation fee” before he would answer any questions we had. After answering our questions, answers many of which we eventually found with experience and practice to be inaccurate at best and downright lies at worst, he convinced us to part with a further 37.5k for 3 bags of feed, 15k for 1 and half bags of calcium supplement and 60k for 120 snails at N500 each which would form part of the broodstock.
Back at the farm, we were ready to start. However, we were convinced that Ifeanyi’s makeshift pen wasn’t good enough. It was constructed with neither a stand nor artificial bedding rather, he built it right on the ground. According to Cajethan, the snails wouldn’t survive in such a place. He then suggested we instead, purchase their pre fabricated snail pens and treated bedding. We declined, but luckily, there were 2 old rabbit pens rotting away on the farm which we renovated to house the snails. Jerry, the diligent farm hand watered and fed them with a mix of 2 parts feed, 1 part calcium supplement every night. Unfortunately, instead of growing healthily, the snails were increasingly pale and lethargic with lots of white patches on their shells (a sign of calcium deficiency). We called Cajethan a number of times and his answers started with “don’t worry, sometimes it gets worse before it gets better” to blaming the soil, the pen, the weather, the water we watered them with, etc. basically everything else but the feed. After a while, the snails hardly even ate any of their food. This was when Jerry suggested we tried feeding them with fruits and vegetables. He would go to vendors who sell fruits in wheel barrows daily to gather peels to feed the snails with, together with some Ugu (fluted pumpkin) leaves from the farm. The snails loved it! Less than 2 weeks later, the white patches on the shells were clearing up revealing the shell’s rich brown striped hue while the snails were more active than ever. This victory wasn’t achieved without some losses as we had already lost over half of snails before moving to fruit peels and vegetables, but every progress must be celebrated! We got an old table top fridge into the farm where Jerry stored excess fruit peels so he didn’t have to go every day.
After changing their feed, the death rate dropped significantly. However, we needed to get it down to zero. Next we changed the bedding; most ants & bugs are bad for snails — they can bite a snail to death, loamy soil is the best bedding — sandy soil doesn’t retain enough moisture while clay retains too much and can drown the snails. Finally we had to change the pen completely. Apparently, the renovated rabbit pen had some nematodes that were also killing the snails.
Alas, after months of going around in circles and unnecessary spending, we found the following to work:
1. For the pen, the initial makeshift pen Ifeanyi constructed from an old pond turned out to be fantastic. We just buried some planks about 6’ deep around the pen and poured in used engine oil to prevent ants and bugs from getting in.
2. For feed, fruit peels and vegetables worked like magic. The snails seemed to absolutely love it and they were active with very healthy looking brown shells. We also learnt we could mix some limestone into the soil bedding as an extra source of calcium.
3. To kill off nematodes and other potentially harmful parasites in the soil bedding, we mixed some garlic into the soil. Luckily, it doesn’t harm the beneficial earthworms which help in breaking down their solid waste.
4. Jerry cleaned the pen daily to remove all solid waste and minimize the risk of the snails getting infected.
These steps worked beautifully and the snails started a phase of healthy growth and reproduction with very few mortalities. Having acquired this much knowledge and experience about raising snails, I decided I had achieved my goal and asked Jerry to kill off and eat the remaining surviving snails. He was extremely elated at the delicacy while I was immensely pleased at the acquired knowledge.
If you enjoyed this, feel free to buy me a cup of coffee or 333 to enable me take on more experiences 😋
