Village Chicken Production System and Constraints in Lemo District, Hadiya Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess constraints and village chicken production system in Lemo district, southern Ethiopia, using questionnaire on 90 households. The mean flock size was 13.24 ± 16.65. The dominant chicken production system in the study area was extensive system (90.0%) with scavenging and seasonal supplementary feeding (95.6%) of homegrown grains. The 84.4% of respondent provide water for chicken and 76.7% of the respondents do not construct a separate house to their chickens. The objectives of chicken production in the study area were sources of income (55.6%) and followed by home consumption (13.3%) and both consumption and income (26.7%). The average age at first egg and sexual maturity of female and male were 22.93 ± 0.22 and 23.18 ± 0.32 weeks, respectively. The average egg production per clutch in the study area was 14.9 ± 0.23 with a mean of 4.14 ± 0.06 clutches per year. The overall mean annual egg production was 56.61 eggs/hen/year. The average number of eggs per set and number of chicks hatched per set in the study area were 11.18 and 9.33, respectively. The main constraints of scavenging chicken production were diseases (57.8%), predator (21.1%), feed shortage (16.7%) and lack of improved breed (4.4%). It was concluded that efforts should be made to improvement health care, husbandry practice, and extension service and breeding to increase productivity of chicken at village management system