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This study investigates local chicken production and management in Tanzania, highlighting low productivity and high mortality rates, and aims to improve rural poultry husbandry practices. The research involves Participatory Rural Appraisal and a cross-sectional study in selected villages, revealing insights on feed resources, management practices, and challenges faced by farmers. Results indicate opportunities for enhancing productivity through improved feeding, housing, and health management strategies, utilizing locally available resources. Recommendations include vaccination for common diseases and interventions for better nutrition and health care, balancing economic benefits for farmers.
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“Characterization of local chicken production and management systems in Tanzania” • L J Marwa1, 2 B Lukuyu3, S H Mbaga4, S K Mutayoba4 and M Bekunda5 • 1International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya • 2Tanzania Livestock Research Institute • 3International Livestock Research Institute, Kampala Uganda • 4Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania • 5International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Arusha, Tanzania • Corresponding author email: L.Marwa@cgiar.org; leonardmarwa@yahoo.com
Most of rural people keep the local chickens basically as source of nutrition and income. • However, the chickens are characterized with low productivity and high mortality rate prior maturity, indicating lack of general poultry husbandry knowledge. • A study was then conducted to generate baseline information required for designing improved nutritional management for rural chicken. • Introduction and objectives
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and a cross-sectional study were done involving different gender and age groups • four villages were involved; Matufa, Seloto, Sabilo and Galapo. • The villages were purposively sampled and were among the Africa RISING program villages, mostly growing vegetables. • A focused group discussions, each with 20 people were administered in each of the four selected villages, • A sample size of 140 households was drawn for a cross-sectional study. • Methodology
The study revealed variations in amounts and availability of scavenged feed resources for rural poultry throughout the year. • The feeds vary with seasons, farming activities and climate. • Most of the village households (60%) were keeping their chickens under scavenging system, left to scavenge as their main source of feeds. • Result and discussion
.The average number of chicken per farmer during the period of study was 17 birds. • The mean clutch size, clutches/hen/year and hatchability were 12.9, 3.5, and 81.5% respectively. • Feed supplementations (unbalanced) were rarely done during the late dry season and early wet season with a handful of whole grains • Results…
Common feed supplement identified • maize, maize bran or sorghum. • Kitchen left over were found to be the dominant supplements throughout the year. • The system is dominated with high mortality rate particularly for chicks (60%) of the hatched died prior maturity mainly due to malnutrition and diseases as 82.3% of the correspondents were not administering any vaccination. • Results…
Results… Majority of local chickens’ management were taken by women, though other household members.
Results… Majority of respondents (82.9%) didn’t have shelter for their chickens, rather the birds were accommodated in the owners house (60.7%) or allowed to sleep in the kitchen (22.1%).
These findings suggest the available opportunity for improving productivity of indigenous chicken through improved feeding and housing using the locally available resources. • Vaccination for severe diseases specifically the new castle and fowl pox diseases should be taken into consideration for the future intervention package. • The findings of this study therefore call for further research effort focusing on interventions in improved strategies for nutrition and health management of the rural chickens while compromising economical gain for farmers. • Conclusion
