tailieunhanh - IMPROVING BACKYARD POULTRY-KEEPING: A CASE STUDY FROM INDIA

The most efficient meat-producing chickens are the meat-type crosses (Rock-Cornish). Purebred poultry types most commonly raised for white meat are Cornish, Plymouth Rocks, and White Jersey Giants, but these breeds are less efficient than the crosses and take up to 14 weeks to develop a desirable carcass. There are niche markets for red-plumage birds and for the Silkie chicken, which has dark purple skin and is very popular in various ethnic live-bird markets. Production Tips Meat chickens can be raised much like laying chickens, except that wet and compacted liner is of even more concern with meat-type. | Agricultural Research Extension Network AgREN Network Paper No. 146 July 2005 IMPROVING BACKYARD POULTRY-KEEPING A CASE STUDY FROM INDIA Czech Conroy Nick Sparks D. Chandrasekaran Anshu Sharma Dinesh Shindey . Singh A. Natarajan K. Anitha Abstract A research project has been investigating the production problems facing backyard poultry-keepers in two locations in rural India Udaipur District in Rajasthan and Trichy District in Tamil Nadu and seeking to work with poultrykeepers to address some of them. Backyard poultry-keeping is a significant livelihood activity for many poor rural families in India and for women in particular. A baseline survey of 90 backyard poultry-keepers provided a general overview of socio-economic factors practices and constraints. Serious problems were identified in both locations and particularly in the Udaipur villages with high mortality rates in chickens and poor hatchability rates. In both locations the project found that for the period under investigation predation was a more important cause of mortality than disease. On-farm trials to improve hatchability rates found technologies based on locally available materials to be effective. A survey of the poultry-keepers agricultural knowledge and information systems identified their main sources of information and the most useful media for reaching them. Research findings There are variations in scavenging poultry systems . in terms of main uses of birds severity of constraints between different ethnic groups and between the landed and the landless. The productivity of scavenging poultry systems tends to be low with high mortality rates and low hatchability rates. Newcastle disease ND which is widely believed to be the main constraint affecting scavenging chickens in India was not the major cause of mortality in the project locations the main cause was predation by birds of prey and mammals. There is considerable scope for improving the productivity of scavenging systems with .