Determination of phenotypic characteristics, production systems, productivity, and contribution of local chickens to households in North-Central Namibia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Characterization of poultry production and management systems in the communal areas of Namibia
2018
A survey was conducted on 485 respondents from eight regions of Namibia to characterize their poultry production systems. The overall mean proportions of literacy level were, secondary (33.6%), illiterate (31.5%), primary (27.3%), unspecified (4.0%) and tertiary (2.9%). The estimated chicken population in the whole study area covering 347 510 km 2 was about 1.84 million and the estimated chicken density was 14.1 chickens/ km 2 . Overall, 76.1% of the interviewed households owned chickens with an overall mean of 20 chickens/household. Overall, 20.4% of the chickens were young females, 23.8% adult females, 14.2% young males, 9.7% adult males and 31.9% chicks. Overall, an average of 11 eggs/hen/clutch were laid with 74.3% mean hatchability. These hatched chicks had an average of 56% survival after four weeks. Overall, 33.5% of the chickens were lost due to disease, 27.1% consumed within households, 21.8% killed by predators, 7.9% sold, 6.5% stolen, 2% due to starvation and 1.3% as a re...
Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 2014
A characterization of indigenous poultry production was carried out to ascertain the production systems employed by the indigenous poultry farmers over the years. A survey of 312 households was conducted in 14 villages in the Nkonkobe Municipality using structured questionnaires. Information was collected on demographic database, chicken housing, and feeding and health management. Descriptive data analysis was used. Findings revealed that keeping of indigenous poultry was popular (89.8%), most (76%) were owned by adult females who are mostly (71.8%) clustered in the age range of 46 years and above. Their literacy level was high, as the majority (71.8%) attained primary and secondary education. Mean flock size was 29.98 per household with the majority (69.5%) rearing birds for home consumption. An extensive system of production was common with housing provided at night for protection against predators and theft. Supplementary feeding was common, as was regular provision of water to the flock. The use of Aloe ferox as prophylactic treatment (94.3%) and as a booster of immunity (81.8%) to diseases was commonly practiced. Mortality in adult birds was uncommon but was high (48.1%) in chicks within six weeks after hatching. Indigenous poultry farmers face some challenges among which are, the poor housing that exposed the birds to inclement weather, predator attacks and stock theft, high mortality of chicks after hatching and expensive feed for the flock. It is, therefore, recommended that institutional support should be provided towards harnessing the potentialities of the farmers in all stages of production for sustainable up-scaling.
Online Journal of Animal and Feed Research
Indigenous poultry production is important to human lives as they alleviate poverty by providing an affordable source of animal proteins. Besides, it serves as the easiest source of income for rural farmers in developing countries. The current review was conducted to evaluate the research findings of indigenous chickens’ quantitative and qualitative traits characterisations in Southern African countries. Quantitative and qualitative traits characterisation is the first step for genetic improvement in livestock. The documents used in the review were attained from different search engines, most of which were published lately (after 2010). Potchefstroom Koekoek, Venda, Naked Neck, Ovambo, Boschveld and Tswana indigenous chicken breeds in the Southern African countries were characterised. The studies suggest that there are variations in quantitative traits including live weight, egg weight, wing length, comb length and shank length and qualitative traits including feather color, comb ty...
Agricultural Science Digest, Volume 43 Issue 6: 845-851 (December), 2023
Background: Understanding of breeding practices and traits preferences of the communal farmers is the bottom-up approach where livestock specialists assist farmers to identify and understand their production challenges before designing an improvement program. This study was conducted to identify the socioeconomic status, breeding practices, production systems and trait preferences of chicken keepers at Madiga village, Limpopo province. Methods: A total of 38 chicken farmers out of 62 were administered a well-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and Chisquare test were used to analyse and test the significance among the gender respectively. Result: The results showed that the breeding practices were not significantly affected by gender (p>0.05). Almost all the farmers in Madiga village were keeping indigenous breeds. The results indicated that the majority of the farmers were improving their indigenous chickens mainly by pure breeding. The most common trait preferences of farmers in breeding cocks were body size, mating ability and growth rate while in breeding hens they were mothering ability, hatchability and growth rate. This study indicated that pure breeding, culling and both controlled and uncontrolled mating system were the most common breeding practices in Madiga village. This study might help to attract animal scientists to develop a multipurpose chicken breed that will express the traits preferred by farmers under village production environment and promote chicken production and food security as a result.
Village chicken production practices in the Amatola Basin of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
A majority of rural households in South Africa-own village chickens which contribute significantly to their livelihoods, yet, there is dearth of information on production practices of this enterprise. Thus, this study was conducted to determine the village chicken production practices in the Amatola Basin of the Eastern Cape Province. Data were gathered using a questionnaire survey of 81 households. They were identified from seven villages using snowball's sampling technique. Village chickens were mostly (60.5%; n = 49) owned by women and mainly raised to meet household food requirements. Some farmers (28.4%; n = 23) also occasionally sold their chickens to neighbours at an average of R50 (USD7.55) per bird. Most chicken flocks (96.3%; n = 78) were provided with supplementary feeds and drinking water. Majority (93.8%; n = 76) of their households also provided some form of shelter for their chickens. Although, most respondents (93.8%; n = 76) confirmed the use of alternative remedies to control parasites and treat diseases; most chicken keepers (81.5%; n = 66) experienced chicken losses due to predation and health related problems. Since this study was limited to the documentation of village chicken production, there is the need for a further research to ascertain the extent to which chicken management practices and environmental variables affect village chicken production in this area.
2021
The aim of this study was to identify and describe qualitative traits of indigenous Tswana chicken populations in Kweneng and Southern districts of Botswana. The qualitative traits involved in the study included tail colour, breast colour, back colour, neck colour, comb type, shank colour, earlobe colour and head shape. Data were subjected to frequency and cross tabulation procedures of descriptive statistics in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to compute frequencies of occurrence of each qualitative trait. The five strains of indigenous Tswana chickens under scavenging management system showed distinct physical variations for most of the qualitative traits. Black was the most predominant tail colour across the strains (51.6%) followed by brown (27.9%). The frequency of brown breast colour and brown back colour were significantly higher in those respective regions. Brown and black were the predominant neck colours across the strains. The single comb type (81.7%), feath...
Journal of livestock science, 2024
This study was conducted in Gibe and Ameka districts of Hadiya Zone to characterize and describe indigenous chicken populations and their production systems and, to determine the productive and reproductive performance of indigenous chicken populations. A total of 351 respondents from purposively identified districts were randomized to gather the information through semi-structured questionnaires. Phenotypic data were collected from a total of 224 (33 male and 191 female) matured indigenous chickens. The morphometric traits recorded were body weight, body length, breast circumference, wingspan, shank length, shank circumference, comb length, wattle length, earlobe length and beak length. Among the analyzed morphometric traits, the significant (p<0.05) difference in districts for both sexes of chickens was only body weight, but female chickens significantly (p<0.05) different for breast circumference, shank length, shank circumference, wattle length, wing span and comb length in the studied districts. Others analyzed phenotypic trait were comb type, plumage color, ear lope color, feather morphology and distribution, spurs, shank color, feather on shark, plumage pattern, eye color and skin color. The results showed that mean flock size of the study area was 9.63 chicken/household of which 44, 14, 12, 6 and 14% of the total indigenous chicken population structure were chicks, pullets, cockerels, cocks and hens chicken respectively. Reproductive traits showed significant difference (p<0.05) between Gibe and Ameka districts. Disease, lack of knowledge, predators and feed were the major chicken production constraints in studied area area. The variations in chickens for different sites and sexes considered as opportunities for selection and genetic improvement of indigenous chicken. .
2010
eclosionaron. La mortalidad promedio por camada por año para el número de pollitos, en crecimiento, gallos y gallinas fue de 2.11 (2.26), 1.30 (1.52), 0.30 (0.55) y 1.33 (1.11) respectivamente. Cerca del 62% de las aves fue vendida a la edad adulta y la razón principal de criar aves fue el autoconsumo (58.1%). Las limitantes identificas fueron salud, alojamiento, nutrición, predadores y robo.
International Journal of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry
The study was conducted to characterize the indigenous chicken ecotypes and identify the production system of the owners across different locations. The three districts of West Hararghe zone of Oromia region, Gamachis, Tullo and Ciro district were purposely selected to represent high-altitude, mid-altitude and low-altitude agro-ecologies, respectively. Three kebeles from different locations (urban, peri-urban and rural) were selected purposely in each district that makes up a total of 9 kebeles as primary sampling units for the study. About 20 rural households (HH) per kebeles were selected randomly and additional three focus groups one per district was formed to strength the ideas of the respondents. A total of 180 HHs (60 HHs per urban, peri-urban and rural locations) were interviewed for primary data collection. Productive and reproductive performance, breeding practice, and major constraints of chicken production were addressed by semi-structured questionnaire and checklists. Additionally, field observations and focus group discussions were practiced. Whereas, measurable traits like body weight (BW), body length (BL), chest circumference (CC), wing span (WS), shank length (SL), comb length (CL), comb width (CW), wattle length (WL), earlobe length (EL), height at back (HB) and height at comb(HC)were considered for the study of 420 mature chickens morphological characteristics. The data were analyzed using General Linear Model (GLM) of SAS (version 9.1.3).Also SPSS (version 20) and index methods were used to analyze qualitative data and to rank priority setup of the breeding objectives and to detect the major constraints respectively. The overall mean for body weight obtained for mature chicken was 1.33±0.009 kg which showed a significant difference (p<0.05) across agro-ecology and sex. Reproductive performance of female average age at first sexual maturity was 5.18±0.92. The main breeding objectives of HHs in the study areas were egg production for home consumption at urban area, while it's for source of income, in peri-urban and rural areas. The major constraints of poultry production in the study districts were disease, lack of housing and shortage of feeds followed by litter scattering and predators. From the morphological characteristics of the local chickens, it is concluded that local chicken populations studied are not unique from the rest of the Ethiopian indigenous chicken populations as the observed characters are also found in other areas of the country. However, further studies involving morphometric, production and molecular analyses are important for exhaustive characterization. Such information will form a basis for conservation, selection and sustainable improvement strategies for the identified prospective local chickens.