By Charl van Rooyen
With twelve million chickens already sold in twenty countries across Africa, Mike Bosch can undoubtedly be called Africa’s chicken king. And this is just the beginning of the plans this farmer from Bela-Bela has for his own native breed of chicken, the Boschveld. More countries are eager to purchase his chickens.
When you mention the name Mike Bosch, cattle farmers think of his Boschveld Beefmaster stud, while chicken farmers tend to associate it with the native Boschveld chicken he bred for African conditions.
After the state bought out his farm at Pienaar River, Mantsole, in 2010, Mike Bosch has been farming on two smallholdings of 70 hectares in Bela-Bela.
Initially, he maintained a core herd of Beefmasters and operated a feedlot, but he decided to focus only on chickens. Now, his son Pieter (25), who began farming with his dad in 2023, has restarted a commercial cattle ranch and embarked on a new project with Hampshire Down sheep. They have also harvested their first pecan crop and produce honey.
As Mike always jokingly says, “Your plans, friends, and ice should never run out.”
Boschveld chickens
Mike and his late wife, Connie, welcomed their first child, Megan, in 1998. When they returned to the farm from Pretoria, where the baby was born, they brought some Venda chickens along the way and brought them back in the car.
That began Mike’s plan to use native chickens to pick ticks off the cattle. When he saw the chickens thriving in the lands, he bought more indigenous breeds and bred his breed, the Boschveld chicken, from the Venda (a good egg producer), Ovambo (very hardy), and Matabele (who lay large eggs), and registered them as a breed.
There was soon a high demand for free-range eggs, day-old chicks and layers, and Mike expanded his farm. At one stage, he had 150 000 hens laying eggs that he sold in shops. The fertilised eggs were hatched in incubators. Then the state bought out Mantsole in 2010 and Mike continued farming chickens on smallholdings.
Mike and Pieter now have 55 000 hens of different ages. The fertilised eggs are hatched in ten incubators, each with a capacity of 2 500 eggs.
They have sold approximately 12 million chickens across 20 African countries and, at one point, sent 60 000 fertilised eggs a week to Mozambique and 40 000 eggs to Zimbabwe.
In addition to the twenty current destinations, Gambia, Senegal, Ghana, Uganda, and Ivory Coast are also interested. The buyers are wealthy businessmen building their chicken farms out of Mike’s Boschvelders.
Mike obtains an export permit from his local veterinarian and does blood tests monthly to prove that the chickens do not have diseases. The buyers obtain their import permits from their governments.
He provides day-old chicks or hens ready to start laying eggs, depending on the distance and route the chickens must take. SA Airways has direct flights to, for example, Ghana, which facilitates the export of chickens. “You can’t send day-old chicks on a journey by road that lasts sixty hours. They will dehydrate and not survive the journey. Those buyers get fertilised eggs instead,” says Mike.
Two million eggs
A company that operates gas fields in Mozambique have now approached Mike to supply two million eggs monthly to their workers at Pemba in the north. The workers live on ships at sea for their safety because Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists threaten them. The local shops can’t provide this number of eggs.
Mike intends to establish a chicken farm with 70 000 Boschveld and Lohman Brown hens (the latest addition to his farm at Bela-Bela) in Pemba to supply the required number of eggs. There are old buildings that can be converted into chicken houses.
He recently exported 12 000 twelve-week-old hens to Pemba. The deal involved the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) donating one rooster and four hens to families in Delgado, north of Pemba, who are also affected by ISIS.
Reason for popularity
Why are his chickens so popular? “The Boschvelders are very tough and resistant to disease. Africa is not for crybabies, and the chickens must be able to survive. If you get sick, old, or weak in Africa, you die. The people of Africa tell me my chickens are the best village chickens in Africa. Our continent has 203 million small-scale farmers who must produce their food. If I can help just a small percentage of those people, I’ll be satisfied already,” says Mike.
The native chickens have become smaller over time due to inbreeding. When one of Mike’s roosters mates with the hens, the offspring are larger, have more meat, and lay more eggs. At one stage, the Portuguese embassy in Zimbabwe sponsored 20 000-day-old chickens that were donated to Gokwe households. Within a year, there were 200 000 Boschvelders in the district. “My roosters on the native hens caused a genetic explosion.”
Training for farmers
Mike also trains farmers. “You can’t sell chickens to someone without knowledge and just give them a flyer or video and expect him to make a success of his chicken farm. However, if they see how I farm, how to vaccinate chickens and perform other tasks, they will understand it better and can return and become chicken farmers. That’s why I teach the basic tricks to the big buyers. After that, one of these trained people can train further.”
He has witnessed firsthand the boost a chicken farm provides to a community’s standard of living and how it fosters economic growth.
Mike also sells boxes of vegetable seeds for R500 to a South African business that markets them to families. This quantity of seeds is sufficient to provide a family of four with vegetables throughout the year. The seeds also come with a manual on planting depth and fertiliser.
One of Pieter’s new projects is the Lohman Brown chickens, which are known for their excellent laying capacity. The farm purchases hens from a local producer and raises them until they reach eighteen weeks of age when they are ready to start laying eggs. The hens are very popular among local households.
Mike also designed a mobile chicken coop measuring 6m x 3 m x 1.5 m as a complete farming unit. The loft features a corrugated iron roof and includes feed and water troughs. It is secured with chicken wire. For R45 000, the buyer also receives 100 hens and 10 roosters, a 12v solar panel with a battery for charging mobile phones and providing light at night, chicken feed, ten nut and fruit trees, vegetable seeds, and training.
The cage is moved monthly, and then the people plant vegetables in soil enriched with manure. The hens maintain a laying rate of 65% in winter and 60% in summer if they are well cared for. One hundred hens can produce an average of 60 eggs a day, which, along with the vegetables, provides plenty of food for a family, while the extra vegetables and eggs can be sold.
Moved from Zimbabwe
Mike’s parents, Pieter and Veronica, first farmed with Beefmasters at Marandelas in Zimbabwe before moving to South Africa in 1993. Pieter later became chairman of the South African Beefmaster Cattle Breeders’ Society. Mike, who started farming with his father in 1988, later succeeded him as chairman.
After the family farm was sold to the state, Mike discontinued the Beefmaster stud. Later, his son Pieter resumed farming cattle and kept Droughtmaster and Beefmaster cattle on a rented farm. They currently use a Droughtmaster stud bull on the commercial cows but plan to start embryo transfer soon to develop studs with both breeds.
Pigs and motherseed
When Pieter started farming with his father, his first project was a small pig farm. He fed them with the waste food from the chicken farm, also bought waste feed from local silos and feed plants, and the pigs also got all the cracked and unfertilised eggs.
He produces weaners using Landras and Duroc sows and sells them at an auction in Onderstepoort, Pretoria.
Pieter also produces 1 hectare of maise and 0,5 hectares of sunflower mother seed for Lima Grain. They plant different cultivars, helping to keep the original lines pure.
Mike began planting pecan trees as early as 2021 and now has 1 000 trees. His first harvest was last year, yielding 30 kg of nuts. This year, he aims to produce 300 kilogrammes. He will not sell the nuts but create a bread spread of 20% finely ground pecans and 80% honey.
He produces honey in his hives, which he wants to expand to four hundred. The bees make the honey from the pollen of sunflowers and wildflowers like aloes. So far, he’s sold the honey, but his experiment with the bread spread will allow him to double his profits.
Mike also has a beekeeping business at his chicken farm in Angola, where he harvests up to 100 kg of honey per hive per year.
Enquiries: Mike 083 453 0954; Mike@boschveld.co.za; Pieter 073 203 2275, office@boschveld.co.za
