Demonstration and Evaluation of Lohmann Brown Chicken Breed Under Small Scale Farmers Condition at Hawassa Zuria Woreda Sidama Region

Abstract

The study was conducted at Threekebeles namely Tenkaka, Umbulowacho and Kajima kebele in Hawassa Zuria woreda, Sidama Regional state, Ethiopia with the objective of to increase improved poultry breeds option to resource small scale farmers’ condition in the region by demonstration and evaluating production performance of Lohman Layers breed. Thirty (30) Participant farmers were selected purposively from three kebeles (10 farmers from each kebele) on the basis of willingness to construct poultry house; to cover all the associated package costs and record the required data. Under each household 30 pullets of Lohmann brown chicken were distributed that purchased from Debre Zeyt poultry Multiplication and Dissemination center. Before the distribution of pullets training was given for those farmers about general management and husbandry of breeds essential data like body weight at monthly basis, mortality and cause of mortality, age at the start of egg lay, body weight at the start of egg lay, weight of egg at the egg lay start has been collected and spread out on the Microsoft office excel 2007. SPSS (version 20.0) was used to analyze data. The survivability of chickens under farmer’s level averagely 89.3% up to the age of 22th week or on set of egg lay observed. On averagely 2.8% mortality rate was occurred at 12^th and the main causes of mortality was the disease and predatory. Generally 10.7% mortality rate or 89.3% survival rate was observed in this study. The average weight gain also recorded using sensitive balance to evaluate growth performance. As a result, there was increasing trend of weight gain starting from initial to onset of egg production. So, maximum average body weight gain of Lohmann brown chickens was 1.32 kg at 22^nd week. Similarly, average egg weight has been increased averagely 54.1 gm around 22^nd week of age. Finally, the Lohmann Brown chickens in all aspects of production and productivity were feasible to enhance family nutrition and income generating aspects, as a result has indicated on this study at Hawassa Zuria Woreda or mid land area and the same investigation should be done in other ecologies specially high and low lands of the region.