A survey on village chicken production in Kerala state of India

Abstract

The present study was conducted to document the rearing practices of village chicken production in the Northern midlands, agro-ecological zone comprising Kannur and Kozhikode districts of Kerala state, India. Data was generated from 65 and 63 chicken farming families of Kozhikode and Kannur districts respectively. The system of chicken rearing is extensive, with the provision of shelter only during the night. The birds are being managed mostly by women (89.06%). The decision on the sale of birds and eggs is made by women and the proceeds of sales go directly to them. It was found that as many as 43.75% of the chicken farmers in these areas have no other animal husbandry activities. The average flock size is 5.62 birds. Natural incubation using locally available materials as a nest box and sand as the nesting material is the common practice. The average number of eggs set under the broody hen for hatching is 10.41. Chicken coops are placed at an average distance of 5.45m from the house and elevated 0.39 m from the ground. The average floor area of the coops is 0.757 m 2 and the night shelter provided per bird is 830.39 cm 2 . The walls and floor of the coops are made of wood and the roof with tiles or thatch in most of cases. Rice grain is commonly fed as supplementary feed with mostly no specific timing in feeding. Farmers depend on an array of herbs rather than chemotherapeutic agents and vaccines for the treatment and control of diseases. Most of the surplus males (59.38%) are discarded before one year of age, whereas females are less commonly culled (21.87%). The average culling age of males and females was 11.05 and 36.64 months, respectively. It was discovered that as high as 52.15% of the eggs and 59.38% of the cockerels produced are consumed in the

Egg production and certain behavioural characteristics and mortality pattern of indigenous chicken of India

“…This possibly provides justification of our previous findings (Kumar et al, 2013) of 58 percent of households not maintaining cock in their flock also incubate eggs taking chance of their hens being mated by cocks from neighbourhood. The average land holding per household in the area is only 29.45 cents or nearly 1,200 m 2 .…”

“…This result was in sharp contrast with the findings of Vij et al (2007), who reported almost zero mortality from Tellichery chicken of this area. This underlines the need for establishing Government chick nurseries to supply grownup desi birds as emphasized by the farmers of this region earlier (Kumar et al, 2013). In grower stage, a very closer value of 21 percent mortality was documented in Baladi chicken in Saudi Arabia (Yousef and Al-Yousef, 2007).…”

“…Our previous study documented the rearing practices of indigenous chicken of India (Kumar et al, 2013). According to our observations, village chicken is managed mostly by womenfolk in Kerala reared under extensive farming conditions with minimum or no input.…”

“…The system of management of village chicken rearing in the study area is extensive free range type with (98.4 percent) or without (1.6 percent) the provision for night shelter (Kumar et al, 2013). Only desi chicken with history of non-mixture of exotic germplasm in the past and also based on the phenotypic characters of the birds true to the native chicken were subjected to the study.…”

Qualitative and Morphometric Characters of Aseel Male Chicken

“…To increase the productivity of backyard and rural farming, improved or exotic varieties are being introduced in rural areas or in their breeding traits leading to a dilution of genetic purity of the breeds or a complete replacement of the native germplasm; hence, these breeds are under threat of extinction (Singh, 2009). The studies on indigenous breeds is scanty barring a very few reports (Kumar et al, 2013;Kumar et al, 2016;Rajkumar et al, 2017).…”