The Production Performance Of The Ethiopian Indigenous Chickens

Academic Paper from the year 2017 in the subject Veterinary medicine, language: English, abstract: Indigenous village chicken is the most prominent class of livestock in the country and constitutes about 60-80% of the total poultry population, their productivity is low because of poor nutrition and low genetic potential. The number of flock per household in most Ethiopian communities is small constituting on average of 7-10 mature chickens 20-24 adult hens, a male birds and a number of growers of varies ages. Such production system may result in slow growth and poor layers of small sized eggs. About 40-60% of the chicks hatched die during the first 8 weeks of age mainly due to disease and predators attack. About half of the eggs produced have to be hatched to replace chicken that have died and the brooding time of the laying hens is longer, with many brooding cycles required to compensate for its unsuccessful brooding. Pullets and cockerels reached sexual maturity at an average age of 6.4 months and 5.7 months, respectively. Even though the productivity of local chicken is very poor, they are very important to withstand certain harsh environmental conditions, and can perform better under poor management than cross and exotic breeds, they are also well known to possess desirable characters such as ideal mother, good sister, hatch their own eggs, excellent foragers, resistance to common poultry disease and special meat and egg quality.

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Agrarian Studies, language: English, abstract: This review paper highlights on chicken production in Ethiopia with emphasis on meat production and the aim of delivering summarized information for the beneficiaries and reader. Poultry production is increasing globally due to an increased population number and an increased demand of poultry products. Poultry production plays a great role for the supply of egg and meat from rural and urban area as a source of small holder family income and poultry production is synonymous with chicken production under the present Ethiopian conditions. In Ethiopia, poultry production systems show a clear distinction between the traditional, low input system on the one hand and modern production system using relatively advanced technology on the other hand. Poultry production is very important by supplying nutritional need of humans, alleviating poverty, requiring small space and capital for investment; sources of family income and benefit to female and children and a lot of socio economic and cultural benefit and affected by different factors shortage an high cost of feed; disease and biosecurity and environmental constraints. Due to different constraints the meat production capacity of local or indigenous chicken is low; so it is difficult to supply the meat need humans by using indigenous breed because indigenous breeds are dual purpose with low production capacity and should be genetically upgraded by selecting superior birds and cross breeding with indigenous breeds to cope the low production capacity of indigenous breeds of chickens.

Breeds and breeding; Incubation; Management and housing; Poutry equipment and housing; Poultry equipment and appliances; Brooding and rearing; Management of adult birds; Mangement of table birds; Feeds and feeding; Poultry diseases; Handling and marketing poultry products; Planning poultry production.

Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Agrarian Studies, Bahir Dar University, course: animal genetics and breeding, language: English, abstract: ABSTRACT Phenotypic characterization of indigenous chicken ecotypes was conducted in North Wollo from January 2011 to May 2012 with the objectives of characterizing indigenous chicken and their production system. Simultaneously, identification of development intervention for improved utilization of chicken genetic resources was also identified. In the first part of data collection, one focused group discussion per agro-ecological zones was held. Then, administration of well-structured questionnaire and morphometric measurement were employed. Measured quantitative traits of chicken among the three altitudes were analyzed by linear model of SAS 2002 for male and female chickens separately. Subsequently, mean value of each traits were compared using Tukey’s mean comparison method. Multivariate analysis of principal component analysis, canonical discriminant, step-wise discriminant and clustering analysis was performed by SPSS 19.0 for male and female chicken ecotype separately. Nechi (17.6%), Tikur (12.6%) and Key (10.8%) plumage colour were found dominantly all over the study area. Findings of the focus group discussion revealed that there were morphologically differences among chickens of high altitude, mid altitude and low altitude study areas. Similarly, findings from the semi-structured questioner revealed that indigenous chicken ecotypes are dual-purpose. The critical constraints of scavenging chicken production were disease (60.13%) predators (20.59%) and feed shortage (19.28%). Number of egg lay/clutch (37.91%) and plumage colour (37.58%) were the major preferred trait by the farmers in the study area. For qualitative and quantitative study, 715 sample chickens were recorded by category of agro-ecology. Linear measurements on six traits were taken from 210 mature male and 305 mature female chickens. The overall mean body weight of indigenous male and female chickens was 1500.97gm and 1253.36gm respectively. The overall age at sexual maturity for male and female was 24.25 ± 0.04 and 23.84 ± 0.05 weeks respectively. There was highly significant difference (p

"The poultry production systems of Africa are mainly based on the scavenging indigenous chickens found in virtually all villages and households in rural Africa. These systems are characterized by low output per bird. Nevertheless, over 70 percent of the poultry products and 20 percent of animal protein intake in most African countries come from this sector. Therefore, increased rural poultry production would result in a positive impact on household food security both in increased dietary intake and in income generation. ... This study coincided with the World Food Summit, held at FAO, Rome, from 13 to 17 November 1996, where delegations committed their governments and civil society to a global attack on food insecurity and poverty. Poultry, like other short-cycle animal stock, is viewed by the FAO Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS) as a crucial element in the struggle for sustained food production and poverty alleviation. The guidelines provided in this study are particularly pertinent to those countries participating in the SPFS where village chicken production will have a substantial impact on increased household food security and gender equity."--Foreword.