Bill Gates has revealed what he would do if he only had $2 (£1.38) a day to live on [spoiler it involves chickens]

The man who if he was a country would be the 37th richest country on earth and with his net worth if he was to put it all in a high-interest account (6%) every second would earn him $114.16 (£79.02) has told the world what he would do if all he had was $2 a day to live on.

“It’s pretty clear to me that just about anyone who’s living in extreme poverty is better off if they have chickens.”

“In fact, if I were in their shoes, that’s what I would do—I would raise chickens.”

By Gates’ calculations, the birds cost around $5 in most West African countries, after a few vaccines and some wood to build a shelter/pen etc after around a month (if all his money was devoted to chickens) then he would be able to afford a flock of 12 chickens, presumably buying them as the money came in.

After several months he would have dozens of chicks to raise which could then be sold on or to increase the flock size, this would then put him above the poverty line by a large margin.

Gates being the nice guy that he is, has donated via his foundation & livestock charity Heifer International 100,000 chickens with the eventual goal to “help 30 percent of the rural families in sub-Saharan Africa raise improved breeds of vaccinated chickens, up from just 5 percent now.”

Gates told reporters at a recent event, called Coop Dreams:

“These chickens are multiplying on an ongoing basis, so there’s no investment that has a return percentage anything like being able to breed chickens,”

He references the old parable of teaching a man to fish rather than just giving him one. “The parable could’ve been stated in terms of giving somebody a chicken,” Gates says.

So while you and I tuck into our £3.95 lunch meal deal consider what you could do with 2-40x the amount of money the chicken farmers have each day, with the right business spirit and training you could turn a few chickens worth of money each day into a business idea that puts you above the average UK wage earner!

The facts from this article have come directly from ‘Why I would Raise Chickens‘ article on Gates Notes.

This article is part of ‘Improve yourself‘ a category designed to show ways people may scam you, how companies trick you and most importantly how you can improve your life by doing something you love doing.