I Made a Fortune Rearing Rabbits in Nairobi, While Still Working as a Primary School Teacher

For some reason, this evening I am feeling very grateful and fulfilled.  So I pick up my journal and as I reflect, in goes my entry:

Today I can't help but look back and appreciate how good life has been to me. I have survived being a farmer in Nairobi. And I have done well at it.

When I was 25 I met the love of my life and we settled in Utawala on a small piece of land he had inherited from his family. That was back in 1996. 

Yes, his parents had been lucky and smart enough to secure land in Nairobi while it was still affordable.

I had just completed my education degree at Kenyatta University and I was going to be a teacher like everyone else in my family.

I’d only be unique because I now lived in Nairobi unlike my siblings and parents in Meru.

In those days getting a job was not an issue. In fact, since I had a degree I had been offered a job as a District Officer in Meru but I wanted to live with my husband. That’s how I opted to be a teacher.

And that is how I started my career at Mihango Primary School. Back then, being a teacher was decent and respectable.

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My first holiday as a teacher had me so bored. You see, having grown up in Meru meant that when you were not in a classroom you were doing chores, herding cattle, fetching firewood or farming. You were always busy and I knew no other lifestyle.

Here I was waking up early, prepping my husband for work and being done with all house chores by 9.00am. What was I supposed to do with the rest of my day?

It is then that I started seeing the big space we were calling a compound. And the idea of rearing rabbits hit me. I had done it when I was little and I knew rabbits eat almost anything. 

I pleaded with my husband and he had a shed built. I had hardly used my salary since we had no kids yet and I wasn’t into much outings or whatever the Nairobi people were doing.

I bought 5 rabbits from a plug in Kayole and I got so much joy from going around looking for whatever they would eat.

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Soon schools reopened and every evening I would collect whatever I could gather for my rabbits.

One thing about rabbits is that they will reproduce, before my next Holiday I had 10 rabbits. This was when I decided to take the job seriously.

I took a loan from my employer and bought my first car, a Toyota Starlet, which I would use to gather food for my rabbits.

At first I made a pact with mama mbogas around my place so I could collect their waste at a small fee and on top of that I’d drive around up to Njiru with a small panga getting hay from places I considered not occupied.

It was not easy. One time I got arrested for invading private property but thank heavens for a broken system. I wasn’t taken to court.

About 9 months into my farming I had about 100 rabbits. I had started with 4 female rabbits and a male and given their short gestation period and ability to become pregnant shortly after giving birth, I began wondering what I was supposed to do with all those rabbits.

One thing about people who live in cities is that they think every small animal is a pet. That is how kids started crying to their mothers to get them pets and I sold quite a number.

Well, that was before they realised that rabbits had to eat and they did not have it in them to gather food for them.

It was during a teachers conference that I came across a Man, Mutua, who was in the business of exporting Rabbit meat. 

We linked up and there, I had someone to sell rabbits to. I did not want to get into the details of his business as I had my day job so I reared up to about 500 rabbits which was my maximum capacity and Mr Mutua took care of wherever they ended up.

While I was pregnant with my first child in 2003, I sold all my rabbits and for 7 years, I focused on raising my child and on my career. 

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Then in 2006 I started on chicken farming. It has been 18 years and I have been so happy.

I have 3 employees who help with the chicken. I have over 2000 broilers and 1000 layers.

In my next entry, I will write how well rearing chicken went for me.  As for today, I am grateful to the young woman who got bored staying in the house and started a small rabbit farm.

I am just happy I did everything I wanted to do.