Turkey farming

What the business is

Rearing turkeys for meat and for chicks. This page is not here to help you start; it is the account of a business that collapsed, written down so the mistake is not repeated. Between 2015 and 2020 success stories about turkey spread through newspapers, Facebook and YouTube, and several thousand people started rearing them around the country. At one point there were about five thousand turkey farms. Today there are a few hundred. Look at where the prices went. Day-old chicks that sold at Tk 500-600 fell to Tk 150. Month-old birds went from Tk 700-800 to Tk 250. Live adult birds went from Tk 250-300 a kilo to Tk 150. The reason is simple: the customer never existed. Kazi Zahedul Hasan, managing director of Kazi Farms, says no consumer demand for turkey was ever created in this country, which is why no large company entered the business. A five or six kilo bird was beyond most buyers, and there is no custom here of cutting one up and selling it by the piece. The Department of Livestock Services is now against turkey rearing; its director general says they have discouraged it for a long time because of the high risk of spreading bird flu and other diseases. Bangladesh Bank once instructed private banks to lend to turkey farmers and cancelled the scheme when the business failed. If somebody talks to you about turkey today, ask them who they sold to last month, and how many kilos.

Unit economics

What you need to start

• Feed. BLRI says feed cost is very high and that it is one of the reasons the trade never became sustainable. No source gives a feed price.Starting stock
• Farm registration and advice from the upazila livestock office. One thing should be known in advance: the DLS director general told Prothom Alo that turkeys carry a high risk of spreading bird flu and other diseases, and that the department has long discouraged rearing them. The registration fee and conditions could not be verified.Licence
• Trade licence from the union parishad, municipality or city corporation: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000 by trade type.Licence
• Knowing how to rear the birds properly. Shakila Faruk, chief scientific officer of BLRI's poultry production research division, says the farmers did not know the rearing method and had no idea about the market either.Skill
• Vaccine and veterinary cover. BLRI says vaccination is not being done properly and DLS points to the disease risk, so securing the vaccine is down to the farmer.Supplier
• Chick supply, which BLRI says has fallen. The farms that remain are scattered around parts of Gazipur, Narsingdi, Savar, Tangail, Sirajganj and Bogura.Supplier
• A shed and space to move. Turkeys adapt quickly to their surroundings, but they are large birds and need room. How much space each bird needs could not be verified.Workspace

How the work runs

1. 1Count the buyers in your own area first: who bought turkey in the last month, how many kilos, at what price. One Kaptanbazar trader sees two to four buyers a month. What that number is where you live is the most important fact you can gather.
2. 2Go to the upazila livestock office and ask directly whether they encourage turkey rearing. The DLS director general says they have discouraged it for a long time because of the risk of spreading bird flu and other diseases. Get the answer before you go any further.
3. 3Look at the seller's own accounts. The biggest trade in this business was in chicks - farmers rushed into hatching and selling chicks without thinking it through. Ask whoever is selling you chicks where he sells the meat.
4. 4Cost the feed first, not the chick. BLRI's chief scientific officer says feed cost is very high and that it is one of the reasons the trade never became sustainable. A chick can be had for Tk 150, but the feed to take it to five kilos is the real number.
5. 5Make sure vaccination is actually available. BLRI says vaccination is not being done properly, so find out where the vaccine comes from before you build the shed, not after.
6. 6Settle the chick supply in writing. BLRI says chick supply has fallen; what farms remain are scattered around parts of Gazipur, Narsingdi, Savar, Tangail, Sirajganj and Bogura.
7. 7Plan on the assumption that the only route is online. Turkey trade is now confined to online sales, mostly through Facebook or YouTube. Shirin Akter, a farmer in Kazipur, Sirajganj, says she used to sell in the local market and now sells almost entirely online.
8. 8Assume the buyer is a hobbyist, not a regular. In Shirin Akter's words, most buyers take turkey as a hobby. There is no steady demand for turkey the way there is for broiler chicken, so monthly sales cannot be forecast.
9. 9Keep the weight problem in mind. Most consumers could not afford a bird of over five or six kilos, and as Diamond Egg's MD Kaiser Ahmed puts it, there is no custom here of cutting one up and selling the meat. Selling one bird means one buyer paying a large sum at once.
10. 10Do not borrow to enter this trade. Bangladesh Bank once instructed private banks to lend to turkey farmers and cancelled the scheme when the business failed commercially. You do not borrow your way into something the regulator has itself backed out of.

Sources

• সিটি কর্পোরেশন থেকে ট্রেড লাইসেন্স প্রাপ্তির ধাপ সমূহ

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital · বাংলাদেশ

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