Husbandry practices of village poultry technology package and the nutritional quality of majorly used poultry feeds in the Central Oromia region, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was carried out to assess the husbandry practices of village poultry technology package, and to evaluate the nutritional quality of majorly used chicken feeds. One hundred eighty respondents were selected using multi-stages random sampling method and used for the study. Structured questionnaire, open discussion and field observation were conducted to collect detailed information. Samples of majorly used chicken feeds were collected, clustered and composite samples were taken for chemical analysis. To analyze collected data, SAS and SPSS software packages were used. The study revealed that most respondents (65.0%) practiced scavenging chicken production system. About 44.6% local, 38.7% exotic and 16.7% crossbred chicken breeds were kept in the production systems. The major objective of the production system was for income source (78.3%). A mean of 17.8, 13.4 and 11.2 chicken flock size were owned per household in the highland, mid-altitude and lowland agro-ecologies, respectively. Flock size per household was significant (p<0.05) between the highland and lowland agro-ecologies. Mother owned 65.6% of the chicken flock and mostly participated on chicken management, makes decision to sell the outputs, selling and treating of sick birds. About 65.6% of the respondents practiced cross breeding where 59.4% conducted uncontrolled breeding. Respondents incubated a mean of 12.2 eggs per local broody hen where 80.0% of the respondents incubated odd number of eggs. Dry season was the most preferred season for egg incubation. To get more male chicks, respondents preferred either Wednesday or Friday days for egg incubation. Except home mixed ration I, the rest home mixed rations have a very good CP content. The supplement feeds had very good content of ME, and if birds were supplemented with enough quantity, their ME requirement can be satisfied. About half the respondents constructed separate chicken house but during housing, about 68.3% the respondents didn’t consider the space requirements of the chicken. Newcastle disease was the major challenging and killing disease in the study areas. Therefore, to improve the husbandry practices of the technology, more attention should be given for women. Moreover, technical support, availability of affordable quality feeds, poultry equipments, vaccines and medicaments will be needed.