Welcome to the Stone Chicken Farm
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About Stone Chicken Farm
Stone Chicken Farm is a broiler chicken farm in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe. It is run by Maulana Manganda and his wife Sibongile. The project is supported by Business4Needs&Dreams – a non-profit organisation in Germany.
Maulana was born in Zimbabwe in 1987, he is one of 7 children. He completed his schooling in Zimbabwe and worked in a steel factory for 2 years and attended cattle for a year. Life in Zimbabwe was tough and so Maulana and his friend Gabriel decided to seek a safer and better future in South Africa.
And so one night in February 2007 with a 5l empty water bottle strapped to their chests they swam across the crocodile-infested Limpopo river and entered South Africa. Within hours they were mugged at knife point by a gang and robbed of the little they had – it was at this point that Maulana and Gabriel became separated. After 4 days of walking through farm lands he came to Louis Trichardt where he was able to get a few days work as a „dagga boy“ – mixing cement.
From there he got a train to Pretoria where he found work in a car workshop. In April 2007 he went to the Home Affairs office to seek asylum. Shortly thereafter he was arrested as he had no papers but on discovering he had applied for asylum he was housed in a refugee centre until he was released with a work and temporary residence permit.
Having several poorly paying jobs, Maulana was forced to live on the streets of Pretoria for 3 years. It was dangerous especially as ethnic violence was prevalent. Maulana decided to move on and worked his way South, after spending several months in Kimberley he finally found himself in the Western Cape winelands in 2011 which is where his luck started to turn.
He was picked up by a kindly strawberry farmer, Jeffrey Zetler, who took a liking to Maulana. Jeffrey was deeply impressed by Maulana’s hard work and positive attitude. He gave him a good job on the farm, a place to stay and helped him get a passport and driver’s license. Tragically Jeffrey was murdered on his farm during a robbery in June 2018. Maulana left the farm several months later and went back to visit his family in Kwekwe where he met his wife Sibongile.
On returning to South Africa he took a job in construction driving heavy machinery. In 2020 he suffered a serious health condition when his appendix burst and he spent several weeks in hospital. Shortly thereafter COVID hit the world and he lost his job in construction. Fortunately a Provident Fund had been set up and Maulana was given a lump sum of cash with which he purchased a parcel of land in his home town of Kwekwe and started to build a house.
However, having no money and no prospects he returned to South Africa after COVID and started working as an Uber driver in Cape Town. It was in Cape Town in October of 2022 that he met Gavin Webb and Birgit (Bigi) Hermes who were on holiday from Germany. Maulana explained his dream to start a chicken farm in Zimbabwe with his wife and Gavin and Bigi agreed to help him.
Gavin grew up in South Africa but moved away to the UK in 2000. Currently he resides between Worcester in the UK and Dusseldorf in Germany. He works in the software industry.
Bigi is German, together with Gavin they live between the UK and Germany. She owns and runs a digital printing company.
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Promoting Stone Chicken Farm at the 20th anniversary celebration of Bigi’s printing company
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The Process
![](https://stonechickenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/contract_signing.jpg)
Getting Started
During 2023 there was a lot of research, visits to other chicken farms and several telephone calls and planning sessions between Maulana and Gavin. Early in 2023 it was worked out that Maulana needed R100’000 (about €2’500) to get started with phase 1 of the chicken farm. A business plan was created. It was agreed that Maulana would raise half and that Gavin together with Business4Needs&Dreams would provide the other R50’000 in the form of a micro-loan with minimum payments and interest rate.
In January of 2024 funding of R50’000 was made available to Maulana.
![](https://stonechickenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/sibongile_maulana.jpg)
Phase 1
This is an opportunity for Maulana and Sibongile to build up their experience and learn how to raise chickens and sell them. Based on the success of phase 1 further funding will be made available.
The target is to be raising between 300 and 500 chickens at a time in two of the rooms within the house. The chickens will be sold live to the local population.
This phase is due to be completed at the end of 2024.
![](https://stonechickenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/first_batch_chickens.jpg)
Phase 2
Build a large chicken run on the existing land to house up to 1000 chickens at a time. This phase will run for one to two years. This phase will also be funded on a matched basis.
![](https://stonechickenfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/new_coops.jpg)
Phase 3
Rent of buy a larger piece of land to house 10’000 chickens and secure contracts with supermarkets. Funding not yet decided.
Progress to Date
May 2024
Maulana and Sibongile, with their young son, Blessed, travelled to Zimbabwe and completed the necessary work to make the house habitable. The first batch of 50 chickens arrived on 28th May. Maulana returned to Cape Town to continue working as an Uber driver to save money to support the next phase. Sibongile and Blessed are looking after the chickens. One month later there have been no losses/deaths which is a huge credit to them. It’s not easy though – it’s the middle of Winter in Zimbabwe and it’s cold at night. They have no electricity and so at 6pm Sibongile boils water to put into several large bottles laid in the chicken coop to keep the chicks warm. At 3am she has to get up and repeat the process. The water supply is also not reliable and Sibongile has had to walk 5km several times this month to get water.
June 2024
The second batch of chickens has arrived. We have started planning of the new coops for 2025 so we can work out the build costs. We are also working out costs for implementing solar.
July 2024
First batch of chicken are due to be sold this month. Maulana is keeping receipts for everything and this month we will start using a simple accounting system.
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9822 Rutendo Extension Redcliff
Kwekwe |Zimbabwe
Phone +26 377 772 8546