On farm feeding interventions for higher performance and profitability of local chickens in Babati district, Tanzania.
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Date
2021
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Local chickens contribute about 56% of products from chickens produced in Tanzania. As
the poultry industry grows, it is important to focus on improving their productivity to
meet the increasing market demand of meat and eggs. This study was conducted aiming at
developing feeding strategies that would help to increase the overall productivity of local
chickens and their financial returns to farmers. The study was conducted in four villages
of Matufa, Seloto, Galapo and Sabilo in four wards of Magugu, Dareda, Galapo, and
Dabil respectively. The villages are located within the elevations of 1004-1803 meters
above sea level. Majority of the households within the four villages practice mixed
farming. The major crops grown are maize, sorghum, paddy, lablab, soybean, pigeon pea,
sesame, sunflower and vegetables, while livestock kept are cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and
poultry. A cross-sectional study was conducted aiming at assessing the productivity and
management of local chickens in the four villages. The study involved 140 households for
the individual interviews and four focused group discussions (one in each village) with an
average of 18 farmers per group. The questionnaire and checklist were designed to collect
information on rural chicken production status, chicken population structure,
breeds/strains, feeding, housing, health management, mortality and labour distribution on
chicken management within the households. The collected data were analysed using
SPSS Statistics 21.0 program. The findings showed that 96.5% of the respondents in the
study area kept local chickens with an average of 17 chickens per household. Most of the
village households (53%) kept their chickens under a scavenging system with irregular
supplementation. Other systems were semi-scavenging (44%) and full confinement (3%).
The mean eggs per clutch and number of clutches/hen/year in the study area were 12.9
eggs and 3.5 respectively with an average of 45 eggs per hen per year. Only 17.1% of the respondents kept their chickens in the chicken-shelters at night while 60.8% and 22.1% of
respondents kept their chickens in family houses and kitchen respectively. Labour for
chicken management was provided by the family members, either by men, women or
children depending on the nature of the activity. However, most of the routine
management activities were done by women and girls while men and boys played a major
role in poultry house construction and marketing of chickens at distant markets.
Following the survey, an on-farm experiment to evaluate the effect of feeding system was
carried out in the three villages of Matufa, Seloto and Galapo in Magugu, Dareda and
Galapo wards, respectively. A total of 45 farmers were purposively selected from the
above villages for feeding system evaluation. The feeding systems evaluated were
compounded feed with full time confinement (T1), compounded feed, with semi-
scavenging (T2) and scavenging only (T3). The treatments were replicated 15 times, each
village having five replications and each replication being held by an individual farmer.
Thus, the experimental unit was a farmer with an average of 34 chickens. A total of 1550
chickens (520 males and 1030 females) were used to assess production and profitability
parameters during the growth to maturity while 607 hens were used for egg production
assessments. Data on growth and mortality rates were collected from the 6 th to 20 th week
of age while laying intensity was recorded for 24 consecutive weeks commencing at the
22 nd week. The Lsmeans on body weight gains were 938.79 ± 18.79g, 815.70 ± 17.20g
and 738.98 ± 13.50g for T1, T2 and T3 respectively.
Chickens under T1 had significantly (P<0.05) higher body weight gains and final body
weights than those under T2 and T3. Male chickens expressed significantly (P<0.05)
higher growth rate (4.71 ± 0.07g/d/h) and final body weight (1146.95 ± 16.05g) than
female chickens (3.77±0.06g and 963.05 ±11.33g respectively) The mean egg production intensity per flock was 30.75 ± 0.50%, 30.25 ± 0.55% and 24.16 ± 0.66% for chickens
under T1, T2 and T3 respectively. Overall, T1 led to significantly (P<0.05) higher growth
rate and survival rates. However, both growth and egg production were affected by
locations whereas, T1 led to significantly (P<0.05) higher performance in egg production
at low and medium altitudes than at high altitude when compared to T2. T2 led to
significantly (P<0.05) higher performance in growth at low altitude than it did at high
altitude when compared to T3.
Assuming that all birds were sold for meat, the results for the profitability was 0.74 for
the chickens under T3 being significantly (P<0.05) higher by 0.19 and 0.49 for T2 and T1
respectively. As the confinement intensity increased, the feed costs increased as well,
resulting in a higher cost per unit gain of meat. Overall, the chickens in T2 gave
significantly (P<0.05) higher profitability (0.50) and gross margin of 1621.33 TZS while
T1 resulted in the lowest profitability (0.25) and gross margin of 705.47 TZS in egg
production. This study concludes that the free-ranging with supplementation of
compounded feeds has the potential to increase both growth and egg production of local
chickens in rural areas. Moreover, full-time confinement with compounded feeds
improved the growth rate and survival rate and is therefore, more appropriate intervention
for chicks up to the 10 th week of age. The profitability of 0.74 in T3 implies that local
chickens are highly profitable if innovative adoptions, such as regular watering,
vaccination, medication, and proper feeding at the early stage of their growth are taken
into account. Thus, the study recommends T1 for the first 10 weeks of growth as it
supports high survival rate, and there after, followed by either T3 for the chickens raised
for selling as live birds for meat or T2 for both eggs and meat purposes
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Farm feeding interventions, Local chickens profitability, Tanzania., Babati district