Small Scale Poultry Production Technical Guide

This technical guide promotes sustainable small-scale, family based poultry production. It gives a comprehensive review of all aspects of small-scale poultry production in developing countries and includes sections on feeding and nutrition, housing, general husbandry and flock health. Regional differences in production practices are also described. The guide provides the technical and scientific building blocks needed to develop sustainable programmes for small-scale poultry production. It will be of practical value to those keeping or planning to keep poultry and as a valuable technical reference for poultry specialists, researchers, students and those interested in broader rural development issues. Contents Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Species and Breeds; Chapter 3: Feed Resources; Chapter 4: General Management; Chapter 5: Incubation and Hatching; Chapter 6: Health; Chapter 7: Breed Improvement; Chapter 8: Production Economics; Chapter 9: Marketing; Chapter 10: Research and Development for Family Poultry.

This technical guide seeks to promote sustainable small-scale, family-based poultry production, by reviewing all aspects of small-scale poultry production in developing countries. It includes sections on feeding and nutrition, housing, general husbandry and flocks health, regional differences in health practices.

Whether you hope to produce eggs and poultry meat for local sale, or simply relish the joy of eating your own freshly collected free-range eggs, this new addition gives invaluable advice on the type of poultry to choose, housing, feeding, breeding and general management.

A growing number of poultry farmer field schools (FFS) are being implemented in developing countries by a wide range of actors. Experience over the past two decades has shown that good-quality facilitation and learning activities are key to the success and long-term sustainability of poultry FFS. This manual provides practical information and activities that help facilitators establish and implement good-quality FFS. It focuses on working with women and men poultry producers to sustainably enhance production, productivity and marketing in any family poultry production system, ranging from extensive to small-scale intensified, in line with producers’ aspirations and local conditions. The first module of the manual covers poultry FFS establishment and learning activities, and the second provides “need-to-know” information on poultry production and health and FFS facilitation.

"The most comprehensive guide to date on raising all-natural poultry for the small-scale farmer, homesteader, and professional grower. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock offers a practical and integrative model for working with chickens and other domestic fowl, based entirely on natural systems"--Publisher description.

This publication constitutes a practical development tool, which implements the sustainable food value chain framework with a focus on small-scale livestock producers, targeting an audience of project design teams and policymakers. Small-scale livestock producers are important actors in food production, human health and management of landscapes and animal genetic resources. However, they face a number of challenges, which hamper their productivity, access to market, and competitiveness vis-à-vis their larger counterparts. By integrating the concepts of value addition and the three dimensions of sustainability, the sustainable food value chain framework not only addresses questions concerning the competitiveness, inclusion and empowerment of small-scale producers, but also incorporates the cross-cutting issues that are increasingly embedded in development projects. These guidelines take the user through the different steps of value chain development, highlighting the particularities of the smallholder livestock sector, such as multi-functionality, specific production cycles or food safety issues, through concrete examples.

Small-scale poultry production is an obvious and well-documented opportunity for poor farmers to start an income generating activity. Poultry are cheap, easy to rear, and easy to manage. Consequently, there has been and there is a growing attention and interest in poultry production in villages as well as in peri-urban and urban areas throughout the developing world. However, existing manuals and books either give advice on industrial production systems using improved (imported) breeds under highly controlled conditions, or very simple field guides giving little useful advice on how to rear poultry with profit in mind at village level. This manual is based on existing knowledge on how to improve village poultry production systems with relatively few inputs. This manual will exclusively deal with free-range systems consisting of small flocks of indigenous chickens or their crosses and smallholder flocks of improved or hybrid commercial chickens.Poultry production can be divided into four sectors: 1. industrial and integrated, 2. commercial high biosecurity, 3. commercial low bioseurity, 4. village, and family or backyard poultry. The focus here is largely on sectors 3 and 4 but there may be some overlap.'Family poultry' as defined by the International Network for Family PoultryDevelopment, covers sectors 3 and 4 which encompass small - scale poultry production.There are numerous poultry handbooks which cover sectors 2 and 3, but this hand book has attempted, in two manuals, to cover mainly sector 3 while not ignoring the great importance of biosecurity particularly in the face of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1). It is envisaged that, given time, some producers, now in sector 3 may move into sector 2. The two manuals are pitched at two different levels. TheTrainer's (instructor) manual assumes that the trainer has qualifications and/or experience in a branch of agricultural science but not necessarily in poultry production. Some of the material included is beyond that necessary to give an initial course in poultry production but may be useful as the farmer progresses from sector 3 to sector 2. The trainee's manual has numerous illustrations and is aimed at a lower level than for the trainer. The farmer may be interested in starting a poultry enterprise or is already producing poultry in a small - scale commercial or semi-commercial (opportunistic) situation but would like to make poultry farming more permanent. The course will allow the farmer to increase his/her knowledge and skills and to become aware of a number of important issues (e.g. managing the environment, disease surveillance) of his/her enterprise.In order to minimise repetition, there is some material in the trainee's manual that is not in the trainer's manual. Trainers should familiarise themselves thoroughly with both manuals.The third manual is for the millions of families, worldwide, in low - income, developing countries who keep backyard poultry, mainly unmanaged, with few inputs, but nevertheless are of great importance by providing, some security, income and high - quality protein. It is hoped that this manual will make families aware of the possibility of improving output with a minimum of input.Much of the information has been taken from a range of sources as well as the author's own experience of working in several developing countries over 25 years.Ideally, there should be a small-scale demonstration unit or a poultry farm available so that the trainees can see, first hand, and better understand the main points in these manuals and observe how commercial poultry production should be practiced.The importance of community poultry farming is seen as a critical step in alleviating poverty of household poultry keepers, empowering women, increasing income, and moving from a scavenging system to one that is likely to be sustainable.