The Livability of Bovans Brown Parent Layers Raised in Commercial Breeder Farm, Ethiopia

Berhanu Abera,Yehualashet Bayu,Dereje Alemu,Abdulbari Ismael,Mohamed Jafer,Shihun Shimelis,Kasim Kediro

doi:10.11648/j.bio.20210902.11

Abstract

In order to meet its chicken meat and egg demand for its growing population and produces export surpluses, Ethiopian poultry sub-sector should move away from the traditional scavenging family poultry system (TFP) to the improved semi-scavenging family poultry system (IFP) and increase the scale of specialized poultry. The Bovans brown (BB) genetics are one of familiar exotic breed in Ethiopia. A prospective cohort study was conducted to estimate their livability and evaluate body weight and age as predictors of livability. There is direct proportional trend in body weight increment with slight difference with the standard. Both sex groups showed excellent growth with percent uniformity of 96.7% for males and 95.3% for females. Overall, 161 chickens died with the total weekly chicken death rate ranged from 0.00% to 1.79% varying from 0.00% to 3.14% in males and from 0.00% to 1.57% in females. On the other hand the percentage of cumulative mortality was 9.91% (46/510) for male chicken and 2.94 (115/4020)% for female and 3.69% (161/4530) for all. The mean mortality of chicken was 4.24 per week being 2.42 for males and 6.05 for females. The loss of female chickens exceeded that of male chickens, CV of 2.38 for the former and 1.82 for the latter. Using regression analysis, the identified significant predictors of mortality were age in weeks (Coef. = -0.78; p = 0.011) and body weight in gram (Coef. =-0.0086; p = 0.006). As both parameters get increased, mortality of chicken on the contrary got reduced. The overall livability of bovans brown breeder chicks at the end of rearing period was 96.45% (90.98% for males and 97.14 for females). Bovans brown parent stock layer chicks demonstrated excellent performance and livability.

Highlights

Producing a big quantity of meat for getting quality animal protein in our daily life plays a significant role to our national health strategy as well as economy
In females the mean body weight showed moderate difference from the standard with percent uniformity ranging from 74.9% to 98.2% with 95.3% for the last week of observation
The present study revealed that livability had a significant variation (p < 0.005) between the two sex groups female showing higher livability of female chicken (97.14%) than that of male chicken (90.9%), which possibly might be because of their differences in genetic makeup

Summary

Introduction

Producing a big quantity of meat for getting quality animal protein in our daily life plays a significant role to our national health strategy as well as economy. In order to meet its chicken meat and egg demand for its growing population and produces export surpluses, Ethiopian poultry sub-sector should move away from the traditional scavenging family poultry system (TFP) to the improved semi-scavenging family poultry system (IFP) and increase the scale of specialized layer and broiler production (specialized poultry). This transformation will make a Berhanu Abera et al.: The Livability of Bovans Brown Parent Layers Raised in Commercial Breeder Farm, Ethiopia substantial contribution to reducing poverty and malnutrition among rural and urban poor [17]. With the aim of improving poultry productivity, different breeds of exotic chickens like Rhode Island Red, Australorp, New Hampshire, White Leghorns and many other exotic breeds of chicken were imported and disseminated to rural farmers and urban-based small-scale poultry producers in Ethiopia [18]

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