What vets told us at the NVMA congress, and what we built that night.
Four days among Nigeria’s vets, one software engineer, and a night of building.
This week I spent the congress of the Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association among the people Nche is built for. I’m a software engineer and a poultry farmer, so the first question I heard was a fair one: what is an engineer doing at a vets’ congress?
My answer was simple. I’m building something vets will use every day, and I wanted to hear from them first. So I listened. Three things came up again and again.
1. Show the vet more than the farmer.
A founding vet who looks after 50 to 100 farms put it plainly. Vets want a tool that makes them faster, not one that makes every farmer feel like a vet. Many won’t say it out loud, but they’re wary of AI that tries to take their place.
The farmer should get a clear answer. The vet should get the evidence.
2. Diagnostics before drugs.
That line is Animal Care’s, one of Nigeria’s best-known veterinary laboratories, and it was the best summary of good poultry medicine we heard all week: confirm it in the lab, then treat. A screening that ends in a guess and a course of antibiotics helps nobody.
3. “I can’t find the link again.”
Vets live on their phones, between farms. If Nche isn’t one tap away on the home screen, it gets forgotten in a chat somewhere.
What we built that night.
The vet sees more
Farmers get the answer in plain words. A vet opening the same report sees every disease the AI weighed, how sure it was, and the test that would confirm it.
Lab tests from Nche AI
One tap, and Nche AI suggests the lab tests for that case, the sample to take and why, and points the vet to a supported lab. Animal Care, in Abuja, Lagos, Asaba and Enugu, is the first.
The farm over time
With the farmer’s permission, a vet verified by Nche sees how the flock has done over its last 10, 20 or 50 checks, so a slow rise in coccidiosis shows before the birds go down.
One tap away
Clear steps in the app for adding Nche to the home screen, on Android and on iPhone.
What doesn’t change.
The vet makes the call, always. Nche gives a first look in seconds: snap a photo of the droppings, and the AI tells you if it looks like coccidiosis, Newcastle disease or salmonellosis, or a healthy flock. It’s right about 8 times in 10, and when it isn’t sure, it says so and sends the farmer to the vet. Our AI assistant never sees a farmer’s photo, their name or their phone number: only the result and the answers they gave about their flock.
What’s next.
- Founding vets. The first 100 vets we verify get a Founding Vet badge on every report they sign.
- Rewards for lab results. Coming soon: vets earn a reward for every approved lab result they add to a farmer’s report.
- N-Ntị, the AI that listens. It listens to the flock for coughing, rattling and distress. It’s coming.
To every vet who stopped, asked hard questions and pointed me to the next person: thank you. This is your tool as much as ours.
Chinedu OkereFounder, Nche
Check your birds from a photo of the droppings, and send the report to your vet.
Check your birds