Uses and flock management practices of scavenging chickens in Wolaita Zone of southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Rearing of scavenging chickens is among the most commonly practiced farm activities in Ethiopia. This system is dominated by indigenous chickens. Output from indigenous chickens is low due to poor management and absence of intense selection that is intended to improve economically important traits. This showed that village chickens are rather evolved for adaptation traits. However, the level of risk is low, and this has made rearing of scavenging chickens a choice of farm activity for smallholder farmers. The objective of this study was to characterize the scavenging chickens' production system in Wolaita Zone. Single-visit survey involving individual interview of 119 farmers and 6 focus group discussions was used to collect the data. Our results showed that rearing of scavenging chickens was constrained especially by disease and predation problems. However, farmers proposed a set of solutions to minimize the effect of these problems. Rearing of scavenging chickens fulfils the multi-functional need of the society. This system has special features because it can sustain in its own without the need for modern commercial chicken farming facilities. However, farmers also reported the drawbacks of rearing of scavenging chickens and these mainly include uproot of garden crops and tiresomeness of the night watching. Selection of chickens was mainly depending on physically observed traits like body size and plumage colour. The initial foundation flock was mainly obtained from the local market. The ideal place for scavenging chickens production is the one that has intermediate weather condition and has some trees that can be used as shade; however, it was substantiated that it has to be free from bush and shrubs, weeds and wet lands. Therefore, these pieces of knowledge embedded among smallholder farmers need to be well documented and synthesized to design an appropriate type of technology packages that can be communicated back to farmers to improve productivity of the scavenging chickens.

Studies on Management Practices and Constraints of Back Yard Chicken Production in Selected Rural Areas of Bishoftu

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Characteristics of commercial and traditional village poultry farming in Mali with a focus on practices influencing the risk of transmission of avian influenza and Newcastle disease

“…Nevertheless, the role of poultry as a source of income or as a social tool was reflected in the fact that 54.7% of households had sold and 28.0% had given away poultry during the previous three months. These results are within the range of those from other surveys where sale for income was practiced by 28 to 62% of households (Guèye 1998, Guèye 2000, Dessie and Ogle 2001, Ekue et al 2002, Halima et al 2007, Desta et al 2012. The majority of live poultry sales occurred directly from home through middlemen, but also at markets.…”

Phenotypic and morphometric differentiation of indigenous chickens from Kenya and other tropical countries augments perspectives for genetic resource improvement and conservation

“…Indigenous domestic chickens are often reared under the traditional scavenging system by small-holder farmers in developing countries (Magothe et al, 2012; Desta et al, 2013). The indigenous chickens are popular in these regions because of their tolerance to common poultry diseases and fluctuations in both feed quality and quantity, hence requiring minimum or no input (Desta and Wakeyo, 2012). Because of the natural and artificial selection, indigenous chicken exhibit a wide spectrum of phenotypic and morphologic properties (Wragg et al, 2012).…”