Transformation agenda: Improving our agribility in agricultural productivity in livestock.

Most of the fruits such as mango, coconut, paw-paw, etc. are not planted by us nor nurtured by us, this also suffice to say that the local breeds are allowed to roam about feeding themselves without any care from supposed owners, they are left at the mercy of environmental hazards, such as harsh weather, hawk, and inadequate feeds. Then the big question here is: can this situation take care of the world geometric rise in population? The answer is NO! 

However, this leads us to the main disturbing contemporary issue on food insecurity particularly lack of animal protein, which small and medium scale poultry production and providing remedy to a greater percentage. 

                                                                       POULTRY PRODUCTION    

                                                                                          

  Talking about poultry we refer to domestic fowl, turkey, geese, guinea fowl, quail, ducks, ostrich etc. 

Origin: the domestic chicken (Gallus domesticus) is the widely domesticated bird in the world. It is believed to have originated from the red jungle fowl of south Asia- Guillus gallus. Other ancestors include Gallus sonnerastic, the grey jungle fowl, found in the southwest india and Gallus varius, the javan jungle fowl with green plumage.  

                                                                     Classification of domestic chicken 

                                                                                     Class- Aves 

                                                                              Subclass- Neonittes 

                                                                                   Order- Galliformes 

                                                                                 Family-Phasianidae

                                                                                      Genus-Gallus 

                                                                               Species- Domesticus 

                                                               Scientific name- Gallus domestica 

                                                               Common name-Domestic chicken     

Having said this, the Nigerian indigenous, native or local chicken appear not fit into the classical definition of breeds or variety. Its referred to as strain. 

                                                             Features of local birds 

 1. Plumage coloration: this ranges from pure black to white coloration. 

2. Broodiness: it’s the ability to sit on its egg and hatch them by natural incubation, therefore production rate depends on nature’s whims.

 3. Poor live weight.

 This would lead us to those factors which attract investor towards poultry farming which include: - 

1. Return on investment is high.

2. Land requirement is quite low when compared to cattle, sheep, goat and pig production.

3. High adaptation: chicken can produce in tropics and temperate regions of the world. 

4. It is confined and therefore free from prey and hawk even accidents. 

5. Poultry manure is an excellent source of nitrogen and help enrich the soil. 

6. Poultry meat and eggs are widely eaten due to their low cholesterol content. 

   Factors that tends to frustrate investor in poultry farming 

 1. Unavailability and high cost of poultry feeds.

 2. High mortality due to disease/ bio-security. 

 3. High cost of day and parent stocks.

 4. High of building materials and equipment.

 5. Theft by poultry attendant. 

Four basic consideration in setting up a poultry unit  

1. Market demand and supply: Firstly, ascertain if there’s market for your products. 

2. Prevailing market price: Secondly, compute your cost of production with the prevailing market price and check the profitability of the business. This is called feasibility studies. 

3. Availability of fund: Thirdly, poultry production is cost intensive, it is better to begin producing when the whole fund is available for start and end batch production is available, it sheer stupidity, procuring day old chicks and running out of fund weeks after, no doubt the chicks would definitely starve and die.

 4. Which product to embark on: Finally, decide if to produce meat or egg or both. But note your decision should be guided by market preference and availability of fund.      

                                               Other factors to be considered includes  

1. Availability of day old chicks and feeds. 

2. Accessibility to good road.

 3. Quality of carcass or meat.

 4. Size of production. 

5. Timing of production. 

6. Security risk and finally climate.

                                                                            Record keeping

Proper record should form the basis of managing the farm. A good record keeping provides information for appraisals and capacity to access loans, which improvement of or weakness of the business organization and also indicate the line of action for setting up targets and working hard for improvement. Its quite unfortunate that record keeping is not a culture developed in Nigeria. In most civilized countries of the world, no business is done without record keeping. Well-kept record consists of past and current history of what’s has happened in the farm. Record must be analyzed and access from time to time and used as management tools. Records are also used to correct and to avoid mistakes that has been made in management.     

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