I guess it's your market segmentation. Who do you want to sell to? We sell to the middleman (or woman) to free us of the time to concentrate on our farming. Price is of course lower, but they have their role as well. We can also sell it at the local food bazaar. Had never sold to Government before. Anyway, we are new and our produce isn't that much to worry about this at the moment. First thing first, (as I'm new to farming) I'm worrying about planting first.

Can harvest soon.

Welcome Alaskanbunny, whow 100K Ha is very huge. Good luck on your project. Do update us on your progress.

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Added on June 24, 2011, 6:47 pmWelcome Jason1986, good to have someone in the legal field background with us. Well, I'm not sure if the return is as good as in the legal field. I'm also new in farming and I don't see myself having a positive cash flow for the next 4 years. Shall be experimenting with some Tilapia fish soon.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jun 24 2011, 06:47 PM

Yes, Sabah is a nice place . Land below the wind. Bumpy road it is, but do share your planning with us. We can discuss and maybe help fine tune your plan. You locate / from Sabah?

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Added on June 25, 2011, 9:09 pmThis thread is a bit slow recently. Maybe most are busy (except me ) Let's spice it up a little.
Cashew nuts anyone?

Building up my Ayam Kampung colony. It's not 19 chicken strong. See out fierce looking rooster.


This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jun 25 2011, 09:10 PM

Welcome to Venturing into Agriculture & Aquaculture freerangechicks.

What you are up against is yourself. Just because "dealing with nasty people in the working world gets to me" is not a very strong reason to go into chicken farming. Sort this out before you proceed ( to whatever your next step is). See, you even have to deal with nasty people like me in this forum

Free Range Chicken actually means My Webpagefree-range livestock are permitted to roam without being fenced in. Can you afford to do this in the first place (plenty issues). Please check with your local authority if you need any permits.

You'll need to do a feasibility study. Firstly, you'll need to find out where is your targeted market, then the retail price, wholesale price. Now, back to your costing, land, fixture, feeds, operating cost, transportation, etc.

Depending what you meant by Free Range and or you targeted market, it's about 40+ to 60 days.

Yes, do not believe what you read on the internet, This posting might not be true. Do you own verification. If you are in Malaysia, there is always our Veterinary Department.

Chicken are prone to sickness as with any other animals, plants and even humans. Since it's "free range", you'll have more headaches like predators, theft & etc.

Chicken are not fussy, then eat almost anything, house hold left over (not oily), Corn, bugs, insect, fruits, plants. I had one instant that one chicken even went to dink the old engine oil that we drain off the generator. After the first sip, it tries to clean it's beak by rubbing it to the floor. Of course we shall need to let them have a balance diet.


Do let us know your plan, we shall be able to add more for you to think about.

Final advise, do not get attached to your live-stock. It'll break your heart when you need to send them off to the market

Happy Chicken Farming

Hi Freerangechicks,
No I'm not the nasty type. Just trying to show a point. The world are getting smaller due to Globalization, you'll meet nasty people everywhere you go. Also we'll need to share the world with everyone else.

If funding is not a problem, you can also consider 'Ayam Aircon' (KFC contract chicken farming).
Would suggest you identify your area first, then talk to the local people who is in this field about the 'local' problems / issue. They may have most probably solved all the problems, otherwise they would had closed shop.

Suggest you visit Veterinary Depart of Selangor ( If Selangor is your targeted area). There is an office in Jalan Cheras. If it's big scale, you'll most probably need a permit. There are also some organic farms in Selangor & Negeri Sembilan that rears Free Range Chicken, and they do have farm visits.
Kampung Chicken is a breed of chicken. Free range chicken is a method of raising (not confining) the chicken.

This is a Ayam Kampung. Was trying to catch it and integrate it to my colony. See the corns on the floor. Not successful today, try again tomorrow.

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Added on July 5, 2011, 8:50 pmSpoke to a couple of planters before. Was told 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years after planting, also it depends on lots of condition, types of clones, location, temperature, fertility & etc. Peak production shall only comes gradually.

Anyone has details or pointers for Rubber trees. Lembagah Getah Sabah has temporary stop selling clones to individual for the time being, until they clear the backlog of government linked projects. I'm trying to source for good rubber tree clones.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jul 5 2011, 08:50 PM

Since it's small scale, you can try whatever you feel like it. Me, I'm doing Day Range Ayam Kampung (very small scale la).

There is another non-meat sector, chicken as pets. Wild Pheasant, Ayam Serramas & etc... Even ostrich..

Marketing, brand building, product differentiation. Depending what scale you're in. Middleman takes big quantity. Supply direct gives higher profit. There is a big difference in Farm Gate Price, Middleman Price, Retail Price. Of course everyone has to earn their keeps.

I'm not a Chicken Thief, the chicken belongs to my helper who has just resign and left. By the way, I did not manage to catch that chicken today, but I got the other one (there is two of them).

Farming is fun, adventurous and gives you lots of exercise. It's a very healthy life style. Blue sky, white clouds, plenty of sunshine & fresh air.

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Added on July 6, 2011, 8:51 pmPreviously, LGM Sabah only give reference/ direct us to others LGM centers, but since it's state wise, maybe I'll check with them (main office) again. Have some contact on (small) suppliers, but I still can not/have not verify their clones.

Say Micheal, any easy way of verifying the clone at site?

Had not though on doing grafting as my requirement is small.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jul 6 2011, 08:51 PM

Hi Leoleo584,
No I don't own any land. Even my house is an apartment . I'm not qualify to give any advise as I'm also very new in farming, as it's only my 1st year. I can share with you my experience.
Personally I feel that if you just buy a piece of land and just go into farming, it's gonna take a very long time in return of investment. I have rented farm as well as on JV/Smart Partnership. There are lots of land owners who is leaving their land idle

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Added on July 8, 2011, 8:55 pmThanks Micheal.
I guess I'll work on your second suggestion.
I don't have the budget, expertise, labor and time for producing my own clones. Also had never even gave it a though Come to think of it, it does hold agood potential. I see lots of nursery doing for Palm Oil, but very little for rubber trees. The requirement for my next project is only about 1200 plant-lets for an area of 8 acres of hilly terrain. Time is also a factor as I planned to get it done up starting August and finishing by December. With the changing weather, I'm keeping my finger crossed as it close to impossible to clear / terrace the land during rainy season. Wish me luck.

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Added on July 8, 2011, 9:14 pmHi Freerangechicks.
Yes, you're right.
It's in The Land Beneath The Wind, Sabah, near Keningau. You are welcome to visit, but only at your own risk I just had 2 visitors (husband & wife) recently. Came to Sabah for a 6 day trip. He worked on the farm for 3 days. I worked as his driver / unlicensed tour guide for 3 days.



He was re-living his childhood, His father was a farmer. He had so much fun using the some of the equipment such as grass cutter, chainsaw and evn the mini plougher.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jul 8 2011, 09:14 PM

you made it sound very far? Our globe is not that large after all. It's only 2 1/2 hour's flight from Sepang. My friend is from Klang. I reside in KL.

Sabah is a nice place to visit. Blessed with natural environment, plenty sea food. Lots of surrounding island, mountains and there is two
"lost valley" Danum Valley and Maliau Basin Lots of farming opportunities too.

You can fly in from Sepang with either AirAsia or FireFly to Kota Kinabalu (~2.5hrs). After that by land transport to Keningau (~3 hrs).

Hi Michael, was passing by a palm oil plantation the other day and saw a group of foreign labors clearing the Berangan (for good) and went up to chat with them. Asked them why are they clearing and throwing away the Berangan and was told that their boss instructed them to clear as the Berangan is "poisoning the roots of the palm". I just could not comprehend what them meant.

Talked to a University Pertanian lecturer during the MAHA 2010, he said it's a good idea to inter-crop bananas with rubber trees too and can most probably do it to 3 1/2 years. according to him, the fruits shall eventually be too small to market due to the lack of sun light.

Off topic, the tissue cultured Berangan that bought is growing at a very slow rate compared to the "local" shoots (Berangan, Emas and the type used for Goreng Pisang) that we dug up to propagate.

Also I'm wondering if it's a good idea to collect the above mentioned discarded "Poisonous" Berangan and plant it at my farm?

Hi ParaOptical,
I have with me "Buku Panduan-Simptom kekurangan nutrien bagi tanaman" by Jabatan Pertanian, reprint 2006. It's in the National language, Adobe file 8,681 KB. It says that make sure it's not disease or insects before diagnostic. PM me if you required the Buku Panduan. I find it complicated to understand.

Hi Guys, what an opportunity. This should be fun. I was actually planning/ executing a "hobby-scale" experiment to check the feasibility of farming freshwater fishes. Open to all suggestions / help. My initial plan was to try out Tilapia as I've researched that the retail prices varies from $10.50 to $12.50 at my area. We have a disused bathing pool and we had converted it to a small pond.



The pool is approximately 4 ft X 12 ft and depth is approximately 3 feet. Pool is felt by a dripping freshwater, piped in, gravity feed (not too strong, but i think is sufficient). We had installed an overflow pipe to discharge the access water. We have a water pump (petrol driven) and a small creek nearby should there be any water disruption (a frequent occurrence). The 'In' pipe is elevated to 3 feet above the water level to create a drop as to increase the oxygen level. There are no electricity supply at the moment. The water temperature is pretty warm / hot in the afternoon. Preparing to add a shade netting to lower the heat from the sun.

Farmer has little / no fish farming experience. These are the conditions at the moment. Kindly suggest
1) Improvement to be made to the pond ( already planning to build a shading net and a net preventing the fish from jumping out)
2) Type of fishes to start with (ease of farming, commercially viable, short maturing period)
3) Farming density (no air pump as no electricity at the moment)
4) Type of feeds (low cost)
We intend to market the final produce as live freshwater fishes locally.
So guys, please post your suggestion and share our knowledge. Maybe by running this experiment, it'll save others some time & funds and used as a starting point.

OMG, sorry I can not offer much as I'm also very new into Farming. I was just adventurous enough to jump into this without without much proper thinking / planning. In Cantonese it's called Moung Cha Cha

HI amirbashah, can share why your Serai project failed? I dis plant some Serai a few months ago alone the perimeter of our farm, only as a supplementary corps. It shall be interesting for me to learn from you. Also the Gaharu, I've heard many people talking about it and the Indons even swear by it, cliaming to have medicinal value. I have in my possession a couple of plant-lets and have not decided on what to do with it.

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Added on July 27, 2011, 7:04 pm[quote=Michael J.,Jul 27 2011, 01:27 PM]
MrFarmer:

Sorry, I'm unable to view your photos on my network. But I can comment on the other aspects.

Your bathtub-pond is rather small, and shallow at that too. Without a proper filtration and aeration system, I'm afraid your biological load cannot be big. Couple that with the fact your water temperature tends to rise to the point human hands can feel warm, I'd say you're really gonna need a tough fish species. Shading might not solve the problem, as the surrounding soil will draw in the heat, and become like an insulator. But it could reduce the temperature flux.

Normally, the suggested load is about 40kg target weight per cubic meter, but without aeration and filtration, that'd be reduce to maybe about 4kg. Your tub is about 4 cubic meter, so maybe 4-6 fishes that can reach between 600g to 1kg. Air-breathing fish, such as gourami, climbing perch, and catfish are likely candidate. Tilapia are also good candidates, but a little more difficult, as water depth also influences their growth size. However you might be able to get weights of about 600g in your present setup.

As for feed, all the above are omnivores, so earthworms, chicken manure, standard fish pellets, etc would be fine. If you can breed mealworms, they'd be fine additions, and quite low cost too (if you breed them yourself).

From my experience, catfish species are the fastest growers with the least requirement for inputs. I recall some figures when I raised African catfish and basa in my old backyard pond, sloping at 4-6 feet deep, and 15 feet diameter (approx. 24kg harvest load). Do note, this pond also did not have aeration or filtration, and was directly exposed to sunlight. I placed 10 fingerlings of African catfish, and 10 patin fingerlings, both averaging 100g individual weights sometime in January a couple of years back. Fed them nothing more than ornamental fish pellets. By the week before Christmas, my family was harvesting African catfishes weighing in between 1.3 to 1.5kgs each, while the patin were a little smaller, at about 1.2 kgs each. Cost wise, we finished one large package of feed about every 2-3 weeks, or about RM16 per month, so the average price per fish would be about RM8.80, or about RM6.76 per kg liveweight. If I'm right, the current price of patin is about RM12-RM15 per kg, while African catfish is about RM13 per kg. More information can be found on AgriBazaar's facebook page:

I was targeting 30 to 50 fishes on my bath-tub pond Looks like I need to sort out the high temperature of the water first. Then have to look into the aeration and filtration. Was thinking that with fresh water supply and dropping it from a height, it'll help to increase the dissolved Oxygen Level and ease the biological loading.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jul 27 2011, 07:04 PM

Thank Michael,
Not too worried about marketing at the moment as I'm just on an experimental stage and my produce is very minimal (most are not maturing yet). We have ready reseller requesting to buy as our farm is located in front of the access road to 4 more farms Talk about location. We have buyers from the village market, town market and also buyers who buy and send down to Kota Kinabalu. Am also contacting buyers who claim to offer 'higher prices' but wants quality products for the Brunei market.
On the bath-tub pond, I shall re-work like building a roof to lower the water temperature, check if I can increase the water flow (free mountain water by gravity feed). Hopefully the shall also help on the temperature & the biological load. By the way, discussing this with you actually got me thinking that I could re-route the overflow water to run through the small slope of our Yam patch. Those Yam at the top of the slope is growing slower that those growing next to the creek. I think most probably due to water shortage. Also I could most probably increase the land size of the Yam patch to near the water run off. Work on this as soon as I'm back at the farm.

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Added on July 29, 2011, 8:24 pmAs far as I know, Serai does not need much maintenance. We planted ours by just making a hole about 1X1 ft 6ft apart and planted a few strand 3 months ago. Did weeding twice and fertilize once. If I remember correctly when we planted, it was about $0.50 per kilo.

Better go check on the Gaharu, here we have people even stealing rubber trees clone. You'll need to do some maintenance otherwise weeds shall grow taller than the trees (vine type) and deprive the Gaharu of sun light. You have workers staying on site?

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Added on July 29, 2011, 8:29 pmHi Chenyin, Yes Serai =Lemongrass. I didn't know that you can make drinks out of it. It's suppose to be easy to cultivate, with not much care required. Make a hole, plant 3 ~ 5 strands, water for the first week, harvest ~ 8 months latter. Keep some for replanting.
Say what sort of current market price are we looking at?

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Jul 29 2011, 08:29 PM

Hi Quackpack, maybe can write a How To / Guide to vermicompost? It'll be useful for all of us.

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Added on August 13, 2011, 8:48 pmOur Serai, after a couple of months, with no maintenance and no fertilizing, only some weeding.

Also just to share, Gaharu plant-lets, we have people selling for $4.00 per plant here, about 10" tall.

This post has been edited by MrFarmer: Aug 13 2011, 08:48 PM

Hi Para,
do you by any chance has this Clinathanus (Belalai Gajah / Gendis) in your Herbs patch? Have friends requesting for it.

Please help all forumer.

Anyone good at identifying herbs? Was shown some, but don't know what it is. It's used by locals as traditional medicine.







was told that there are different types of Serai, there are for cooking and this one is for oilmen

Yes, I received an email from a friend and was told that it's easily available in Sabah. As I know the required leaves are quite plenty and also it needs to be fresh, so we were thinking of sending the seeds / plant-lets to those that needs it and let them plant it for themselves. (Not for sale, just to help people in need)
Now my 2 problems
1) How to identify it
2) How to ship it to other states (Peninsular) as I think it needs to go thru the Quarantine Period.
Any help / assistance greatly welcome and appreciated.

Para; email replied.

Hi Guys, anyone doing Castor Seeds farming. Have people here promoting this and their calculation shows marvelous fast returns. Care to share? Company based in Kuching, Sarawak.