Mwatipedza Road Runner Chickens project

4 August 2024
Introduced the road runner project wherein Amurongo Emmill Mallony Marange will supply 10 day old road runner chicks to willing participates. The chicks will be availed free of charge. At current production levels, we will supply around 120 chicks at the end of each month, depending on the hatch rates that we will achieve from our eggs in Harare. However, to ensure that we reduce the number of people who always ask for freebies but do not look after them, there will be a condition that if less that 7 of the chickens survive to maturity at 6 months, then the participant will be asked to pay back USD3 per chick. Hopefully, this will screen the participants to only those who are serious about the project. In selecting the order of participants over the months that Amurongo will supply the chicks, the committee will be guided by the participants level of involvement in the village affairs. These areas of involvement include attendance and participation in village meetings. Payment of levies and other monetary contributions required from time to time, and active involvement in Zunde RaMambo. 42 people signed up for the project.

8 August 2024
Mandatory Training session held in the Mwatipedza Community Hall for all those who expressed interest in participating in The Road Runner project initiated by Amurongo Emmill Mallony Marange. It is our prayer that equiped with the knowledge and skills from this training, all participants will be able to bring their chicks to maturity with negligible mortality rate. Thank you vaDhumeni vedu and the Agritex team👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿!

6 September 2024
We were happy to deliver the road runner chicks to the first eleven project participants who included a young under twenty five lady. The hatch rate was not good so the chicks available were only 110. We look forward to distributing even more chicks next month

10 October
We delivered road runner chicks to an additional 27 participants, bringing the total recipients to 38, and a balance of 5 to meet the target of 43. The chicks were well received and everyone expressed determination to ensure that they grow to maturity. Following the successful two deliveries, more families have now decided they also want to participate in the initiative. An additional 61 families attended the training organised by the Mudhumeni on 11 October, bringing the total number of households that are still to receive chicks up to 66! This will bring the total participating families to 104!!
We are sticking to the principle that participants in the initiative must be in good standing with the village in terms of payment of levies and participation in village programs like Zunde RaMambo etc. I now await the details of how many among the additional 61 are eligible to participate in the program. Once this number is known, Amurongo and I will need to assess how many more we can accommodate as we had planned on the initial 43 participants only.

7 February 2025
Having delivered chicks to the last 5 of the initial 43 participants in November 2024, on 7 February Emmill Mallony Marange and I were blessed to deliver another batch of chicks for 10 more participants bringing the total participants to date to 53. We hope to complete deliveries to all participants in the coming month. Ebenezer!

20 April 2025
In March we delivered road runner chicks to the last 9 participants, bringing the total number of participants to 62. Reports on the survival rate, growth and development of the chicks which we are getting from earlier recipients are very encouraging. Mortality rates are very low with zero % being reported by a lot of participants. The earlier batches are now reported to be laying eggs. We await reports of these now hatching their own chicks, which will bring the vision to full implementation.

2 May 2025
During a home stead visit, what a joy it was to see the day old Road Runner chicks have grown very big and have started laying eggs. We pray that some of them will hatch chicks soon. Emmill Mallony Marange, your vision is becoming a reality before our eyes! What was most encouraging is that the homestead where I saw these chickens last week is at the furthest point of the village near Chiringaodzi mountain where baboons are notorious for stealing and killing chickens. Despite this, this family has managed to raise their chicks so well. All Glory to God!