Assessment of Chicken Production under Farmers Management Condition in East Gojam Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

The survey was conducted in Eastern Gojjam Zone of Amhara regional state, North Ethiopia from January to June, 2013 to generate base line information on chicken production under farmer’s management condition. Of total, 83% of respondents practiced free ranging type chicken production system with conditional feed supplementation and frequent water supply. Despite the largest concern was given for female households, males also involved in chicken management activities aiming for household consumption and income generation. The mean flock size per household was found to be 13 and 5 for local and crossbred chickens, respectively. Almost all farmers in the tested districts provided night shelter for their chickens, and majority (91%) of them have experience of culling undesired chicken from the flock. From this study, the mean number of eggs laid was 18 eggs per/hen/clutch. Most chicken keepers in the study area had experience of selecting and incubating eggs for hatching using broody hens as a sole means of natural incubation. The average number of eggs set for incubation was 13 per broody hen, from which relatively fair number (83%) of chicks were hatched and 67% were grown well. Seasonal disease outbreak (100%) followed by predators (89%) was considered the largest threat to chicken production. Moreover, traditional management (83%), limitation of improved breed availability and lack of extension and chicken health services (86.7%) were the major constraints of chicken production in the study area. Therefore, holistic extension services such as applying breed and management improvement methods, besides to supplying chicken health service strategies are highly recommended in the study area for further improvement of chicken production under farmer’s management condition.


INTRODUCTION
Poultry production is an important economic activity in Ethiopia.Besides to its economic and social values, it occupies a unique position in terms of high quality protein food contribution to rural smallholder farming families in Africa and particularly in Ethiopia (Sonaiya et al., 1999;Tadelle and Ogle, 2001).Both poultry egg and meat enrich and contribute to a well balanced diet to satisfy human needs.An average adult human needs about 65g of protein/day, of which only 10% needs to be protein of animal origin (Tadelle et al., 2003a).Approximately 20% of protein consumed in developing countries originates from poultry (Askov and Dolberg, 2002).
The total population of chicken in Ethiopia is about 50.38 million comprising cocks, cockerels, pullets, laying hens, non-laying hens and chicks (CSA, 2012).Of which, 96.9%, 54% and 2.56% were reported to be indigenous, hybrid and exotic chicken breeds, respectively.Despite the high number, their contribution to farm households and national income is still very low (2-3%) and the annual growth rates in egg and meat output were estimated about 1.0 and 2.6% as compared to the sub Saharan Africa countries, 5.7and 6.8%, respectively (Negussie, 1999).This might be due to shortage of poultry feed and nutrition under both rural smallholder and large-scale systems in the country (Tadelle et al., 2003b).Moreover, the productivity of birds under the rural production system is very low interims of egg production, size of eggs, growth rate and survivability of chicks (Teketel, 1986), which may be attributed to lack of improved poultry breeds, the presence of predators, the high incidence of diseases, poor feeding and management followed by farmers (Alemu, 1987).
Although large number of chicken were recorded in East Gojjam Zone, which is about 1.15 million (CSA, 2012), their current production performance has not studied and documented yet and their attributes are unknown by stalk-holders.Consequently, this study was initiated to generate baseline information about chicken production and productivity performances, and use patterns under farmer's management condition.

Description of the Study Area
The study was conducted in Eastern Gojjam Zone of Amhara Regional State.The area lies at 10 o 20' North latitude and 37 o 43' East longitudes, and at an altitude range of 500-4154 m.a.s.l.The annual rainfall of the area ranges from 900-1800mm and mean minimum and maximum temperature of 7.5 O C and 25 O C, respectively.Mixed crop-livestock production system is a common agricultural practice in the area; even smallholder traditional poultry production is practiced in each village and household level.The livestock population of the area include 1.84 million cattle, 1.14 million sheep, 0.4 million goats, 0.09 million horses, 0.36 million donkey, 0.014 mule, 1.15 million poultry and 0.13 million hives (CSA, 2012).

Sampling Methods and data collection
The survey was conducted in three districts (Dejen, Awobel and Machakel) of East Gojjam Zone, from January to June, 2013, which are purposively selected based on their potentiality of chicken production.Similarly a total of 9 peasant associations, three from each district were selected.A total of 90 households, 10 from each peasant associations, were selected purposively based on their poultry production experiences, possessing at least 10 chickens.
A cross-sectional study design was used to carry out the study to collect data on all relevant information from the existing chicken management condition using well structured questionnaire.The questionnaire focused mainly on chicken's management practices, flock production performances, use patterns of products, problems prevailing in chicken production and other related issues of poultry production.Secondary date, like introduction of poultry technology and extension services were collected from the respective Agricultural and Rural Development Office.
Moreover, In order to obtain actual information in common aspects of poultry production such as egg color flock composition and routine management practices, close visits or personal observations around the residential quarters of the selected peasant associations were performed.The core data collected using questionnaires were analyzed by using descriptive statistics of SPSS version 20 (SPSS, 2001).Tukey test were used to locate Significant mean differences.

Purpose of keeping chickens
The result of this study indicated that keeping of chickens is widely practiced in the study area.Almost every farmer keep chicken in varying number of flock size aiming of producing egg and meat for household consumption, income generation and hatching and rearing of chicks for replacement of flock.In line with this study Tadelle et al. (2003b) and Halima et al. (2007) with their studies in different areas reported that, income generation and household consumption are the main production objectives of keeping village chicken in Ethiopia.

Households Characteristics of Selected Farmers and Gender Involvement
General characteristics of the respondents indicated that Majority (96.7%) of the respondent farmers belonged to the orthodox religion.Of which, (76.7%) were the male households and the rest were female (Table 1).The average family size of sample respondents is 5.11 (ranged 1-10), which is nearly similar to the national average of 5.2 persons (CSA, 2003) and 5.4 for northwest Amhara (Halima et al., 2007).However, the present finding is smaller than the findings of Fisseha et al. (2007) and Asefa (2007) who reported 6.2 and 7 persons per household for the Burie district in Amhara region and Awassa Zuria woreda in the SNNPR, respectively.Furthermore, only 27.8% of the farmers were illiterate and the rest were just able to read and write, and majority (40%) of them have formal education background up to high school level (Table 1).In almost all of the study areas, respondent farmers have an average of more than 7 and 2.5 years experience of keeping local and cross-breed chickens, respectively.
The survey result also indicated majority (93.3%) of the respondent farmers practiced mixed crop-livestock production activities.Concerning chicken management, both men and women (53.3%) share most of the poultry rearing activities, although the rest (42.2%) was given to the female family members in the households.In line with this result Fisseha et al. (2007) reported that, all members of the family in a household participate in chicken husbandry and management practice in one way or another.

Flock size of Respondent Farmers
The overall average flock size (Table 2) of respondent farmers in the study area was 13 chickens per household for local chicken and less than 5 cross-breed chickens per household.Similar to this study, Fisseha et al. (2010) was reported the mean flock size of 13 local chicken ecotypes per household in Bure district of Amhara region.An average flock size of 16 chickens was also reported in the central parts of Ethiopia (Tadelle et al., 2003b).Moreover, the result of this study is in line with the work done by Gueye (1997) who reported that the flock size generally ranged from 5 to 20 fowls per African village household.As the result of this study, almost all respondent households keep all groups of chicken together without age separation.In agreement with this study, Samson and Endalew (2010) reported that 96% of the village chicken producers keep all ages of chicken together.Besides, Tadelle et al. (2003b) also reported that, chickens are widespread in Ethiopia and almost every rural family keeps all age groups of chicken, aiming for valuable source of family protein and income.

Chicken Management at the Farmer's Level
The results of the study (Table 3) showed that the dominant (83.3%) chicken production system in the study area is a free range or extensive type.chickens were managed mainly on free ranging, utilizing various feed sources searching by their own in the field, with conditional feed supplementation.However, some (16.7%) of the respondent farmers practice semi-intensive type of chicken management using fences around their homestead.This implied that farmers in the study area are going to change and improve chicken management practices i.e., 97.8% of them have future chicken production improvement plan mainly by improving the management activity as well as using improved chicken breeds.Tadelle et al. (2003b) and Solomon (2004) in their study reported, in Ethiopia the smallholder chicken production system is characterized by keeping under free range system with the major feed sources of insects, worms, seed and plant materials.Similarly, Dwinger et al. (2003) reported that, family poultry production in Africa survives by scavenging with limited supplementation of household waste feed and grain.In this study, majority (65.6%) of the farmers respond that the main source of their chicken stock is purchasing from local market, and thus they incurred around 47.8 and 46.7% of the major production costs for purchasing of stock and supplementary feed, respectively.

Housing and culling management of chicken
Housing facilities for rural chicken are usually made of small wooden structures aimed at Keeping the birds at night and thus, variety of night sheltering of chicken are practiced.According to the result of this study (Table 4), almost all farmers provided night shelter for their chickens like in separate sheds purpose-made for chickens 41.1 %, using perch 24.4%, using basket 15.6%, in the main house at one of the rooms 11.1% and the remaining 7.8% use either part of the kitchen.From the result it could be understood that the housing management in the study area is not satisfactory for the well being of chicken and their products management, and thus it needs improvement.In support of this result, Dwinger et al. (2003) reported that in some African countries, a large proportion of village poultry mortality accounted due to nocturnal predators because of lack of proper housing.
As the chicken farmers replied, chickens were confined only during the night and they move freely during the day, thus 65.6 % of the households clean the chickens' house once per day, while as 12.2 % and 21.1% of the owners cleaned it twice and one times per week, respectively (Table 4).This result is in agreement with the survey undertaken by Halima et al. (2007) in northern Ethiopia who reported 74.02 % of the households cleaned their chickens' house once per day, while 11.66 % of the owners cleaned it twice per day.The result of the study (Table 4) also indicated that majority (91%) of the respondents experienced in culling of unwanted or less productive chickens from their flock.According to the respondent farmers, the basic reasons for culling of chicken include less productivity (57.8%), old age (28.9%) with an average culling age of 3.5 years and infected with disease (13.3%).Most of the farmers (90%) sold the culled chicken for income generation purpose.In support of this study, Halima (2007) reported that about 74.7% of the reasons for culling of chicken in North West Ethiopia are poor productivity, old age and sickness as a whole.

Feeding and watering experience of farmers
The results of the study showed that all (100%) of the respondent farmers practiced in providing supplementary feed to chicken, which is usually offered 56.7% once per day, 34.4% twice per day and the remaining 8.9 % provide supplementary feed more than twice per day (Table 5).This result implied that although the supplementary feed is not satisfactory in terms of quality and quantity, there is a good accomplished of supplementing their chicken in order to improve the productivity performance.According to the response of the chicken farmers 53.3 % and 46.7% of them use household by products and purchased grains from local market, respectively to supplement their chicken.In line with this study, the work done by Halima et al. (2007) in northern Ethiopia indicated that 96.8% of the farmers supplied partial supplementation of feeds and 95.5 % of the feed was produced locally.Majority (91.1%) of them provide supplementary feed by throwing on the ground to feed in groups without age separation.However, some of the farmers less than 9% of them, who mainly practicing semi-intensive type of chicken management, use locally prepared materials like stone trough, plastic trough, wooden trough, etc. to provide supplementary feed.
Almost all farmers provide water for their chickens; however the frequency of provision per day varies mainly based on the availability of labor, water and their understanding label about the use of water.According to the response of respondents 27 % and 62% of them were filling the varying types of watering troughs (Table 5) twice and more than two times per day, respectively for unlimited access.The major water sources for chickens in the study area are pond and deep well water (39%) and river water (36.7%).Majority of the respondents (64.4%) experience daily cleaning of watering trough and others in varying times per week and depending on the conditions.

Egg production and hatching potential of chicken
From the present study it is indicated that the average number of eggs laid was 18 eggs per clutch ranging from 10 to 32 per hen; usually the maximum is from cross breed chickens (Table 6).This study revealed a range of four-six clutches was shown per hen per year in almost all of the study areas.
From the survey result, it is understood that exclusively natural incubation and hatching is practiced by all (100%) of chicken producers.The Average number of eggs set for incubation was 13 ranging from 10-20 per hen (Table 6), from which relatively fair number (83%) chicks were hatched.This result is in line with the work done by Samson and Endalew (2010), who reported that productive hens lay on average 10-18 eggs per clutch and 7-15 eggs were incubated using a broody hen from the incubated eggs 5-10 chicks hatched per clutch.Despite different colored eggs were observed, white (65.6%) were found to be dominant in almost all of the study areas.From this study, it was also understood that almost all of respondents experienced in practicing exclusively natural incubation and hatching, besides majority of them (75.6%)used different egg selection methods to increase hatchability, from which 46.7% used age and size of an egg, 21.1% and 7.8% used only egg size and age of an egg, respectively (Table 7).In this regard, relatively, lately laid and larger sized eggs are selected for natural incubation.This result indicated that majority of the farmers have some knowhow to improve hatchability of chicks.The result also further indicated that respondent farmers used various locally prepared egg setting equipments, namely 85.6% used equipments made from bamboo, twigs, wood or grass, and the rest 14.4% used equipments made from Mud.

Figure :
Figure: Map of the Amhara National Regional State, East Gojam Administrative Zone and the Study Districts

Table 2 : Responses of farmers regarding flock size/hh (N=90)
Least square means with different superscript within a column are significantly different (P < 0.05).

Table 3 : Responses of farmers regarding chicken management (N=90)
This result is in agreement with various research reports done in different areas.

Table 6 : Responses of farmers regarding egg production and hatching (N =90)
a 65.91±11.48N= no. of respondents; Min=minimum; Max= maximum; SD= standard deviation.a, b, c Least square means with different superscript within a column are significantly different (P < 0.05).