My Farm: My Experience - Essefie-Ackah

In the year 2010, I started dog breeding. I had a chat with a friend who is a fellow dog breeder who also had rabbits. The chat was about how we could increase his rabbits because we were using the rabbits that died on his farm to feed our dogs. This brought a partnership which lasted for close to eight (8) years. We won the best district rabbit farmer in 2012. In 2018, I decided to start my own rabbit farm. This was because I had moved from Dansoman to Oyarifa. I saw it as an opportunity to start a branch but later decided to make it on my own. Michael Essilfie-Ackah is my name commonly known by most people as Spooky. I am a mechanical engineer by profession. Essilfie-Ackah farms started in 2015. It started with crop production, goat, poultry and turkey. Most of the animals were reared for the festive season. The rabbit chapter started in 2018. When I decided to start on my own, I took my share of the partnership which was supposed to be in the form of ten (10) set of hatches i.e. thirty (30) rooms and fifteen (15) rabbits. But I started with eight (8) does and a buck. After 3 months I added three (3) does and 3 bucks making a total of 15 rabbits. In the past two years I sold close to one hundred and fifty (150) rabbits in the form of meat and breeders. CHALLENGES: In every business there are challenges that one faces. Some of the challenges I faced was high mortality rate during my breed season. Farm hands was another. Cleaning and housekeeping was also a challenge I faced because most of my farm hands won’t last two months. In July 2020 my farm was hit by the rabbit hemorrhagic disease type two (RHD2). This cleaned my whole rabbit farm. Before the RHD2 I run a sixty six (66) doe unit. I lost about three hundred and seventy (370) rabbits. Though tough but I WILL BOUNCE BACK BIG. At the moment I have 10 doe unit with only three does being bred. Seven are yet to be bred. Essilfie-Ackah farms in the future wants to operate if not the biggest rabbit farm in Ghana and West Africa then one of the biggest. This requires a lot of funds. With this as our goal we are working hard to achieve this in the next five (5) to ten (10) years at most. ADVICE TO THE YOUTH: The little advice I will give to the youth is not to see farming as an occupation for old and illiterate people but for young intelligent and creative minds. Another advice to rabbit farmers is to read a lot and find out modern ways of breeding. I will say the rest by way of answers to your questions. Thank you.