Development and pre-testing of chick and chicken transportation coop (box), at Arba Minch agricultural research center, Arbaminch, SNNPR, Ethiopia

Abstract

This chick and chicken transportation cage technology was designed, produced and pretested as a creative innovation on its structure and convenience for traditional poultry producers who exist on rural areas of the country where there is no access to get plastic chick/chicken transportation cage. The data on this particular work was row materials, measurements of the cage parts, construction challenges, and opportunities on the hand of local carpenters/wood workers. In my opinion there will be many works in near future on modification of cage design, size, component number, row material and comparative evaluation based on suggested areas and with other cage technologies. At day old age which is very risky age for management, 94% of the chicks survived from AMARC cage and 98.7% from Plastic/Purchased type during phase 1 study. During phase 2 study, 99.7% of the chicks survived from AMARC cage and 100% from Plastic/Purchased type. Causes for the death of the chicks were management problem. For Matured chickens transportation, the current study clearly showed that using both cages resulted about 100% of the transported chickens survived.