Village chicken production systems in Ethiopia:
2. Use patterns and performance valuation and chicken products and socio-economic functions of chicken 

Socio-economic aspects of keeping chicken

The present study revealed that women have considerable knowledge about poultry and poultry production more than their men counterparts. In all the 10 study villages, it was found that it is mostly the women who own and manage the birds and control the cash generated from sales. Next in the picture come children and then men. The wealth status of the villagers influenced chicken production in the study areas. There was no statistically discernible (p>0.05) variation between wealth status and number of birds owned by households. However, it was learned that households with different wealth status have different objectives for keeping poultry and have different use pattern and management practices. On the one hand, wealthier families keep birds as a sideline activity and much of the products were used at home with only smaller proportion for sale. On the other hand, the poorer ones keep birds as a means of income generation through sales, and devote more time and effort to their management. These assertions were further confirmed by the significant (p<0.01) and negative correlation (r = -0.48) between wealth status and cash income from chicken farming. About 30.8, 23.2, 29.6 and 16.4% of the households, respectively, were earning a cash income of  >300, 200-300, 100-200 and less than 100 Ethiopian Birr (1 USD=8 Ethiopian Birr) per year from sales of live chicken and eggs (Table 5).  

Discussion

Although it was difficult to determine the most important purpose due, for example, to the difficulty in comparing the spiritual benefit of sacrifice with the financial benefit of sale, based on the results of this study, indigenous chicken and chicken products have direct use as sale, consumption and reproduction and equally the cultural, social and religious functions of indigenous chicken types were important in all the study sites. The most rational strategy for conserving livestock breeds is to ensure that they remain a functioning part of the farm production system. Based on the results of this study, that is certainly true for indigenous chicken as an important part of a balanced farming system, conserving in their production environment is recommended but incorporating the cultural and religious functions of indigenous chicken types is believed to play a role to this end.  

Adult productivity and educational attainment depends, to a considerable extent, on the health and nutrition condition during early childhood. An IFPRI report by Delgado (1999) showed that a healthy adult with a nutritionally adequate diet has a higher level of economic productivity in both own-farm production and labour market than the one who eats and keeps less well. 

Poultry occupy a unique position in terms of their contribution to the provision of high quality protein food to rural smallholder farming families in Africa (Sonaiya et al 1999). There are only few alternative animal protein sources available. There are also few cultural or religious taboos that stand against the consumption of eggs and poultry meat in the study areas.  Both poultry egg and meat enrich and contribute to a well balanced diet to satisfy human needs. However, based on the results of this study, the amount of egg and chicken consumed by farm households in the study areas is generally below the needs for animal protein. According to Smith (1990) an average adult human needs about 65g of protein a day of which only 10% needs to be protein of animal origin. Village poultry could be particularly important in improving the diet of young children in Sub-Saharan Africa in which currently inhabits about 33 million malnourished children, which are below five years old (Rosegrant et al 2001) and responsible for deaths of millions. Even though this discussion is being made without a household nutrition survey and assuming that the farm households could get their 50% animal protein requirements from other foods of animal origin e.g. milk and milk products; one egg or 40g of poultry meat could provide animal protein needed to supply the remaining 50% of essential amino acids to one person for two days. Provision of one egg per person per two days would necessitate a production of 182 eggs per individual per year.  If a similar amount of protein could be provided from chicken meat one 1.5 kg bird per person would be needed every two months.  

The results of the present study showed that a typical family in the study villages consists of one nourishing mother, a man and four children aged 1, 5, 9 and 11. The total animal protein requirements/day/family would, therefore, be 28.9g, 50% of which could be obtained from three 50g eggs (6.1g protein/egg) a day or one 1.5 kg chicken (25g protein/100g chicken meat) consumed by the family each week.  Based on the current number of hens and their productivity status, and assuming that all eggs produced per year will be used for home consumption plus the number of chicken consumed by farm households, it can be projected that a scavenging poultry flock could provide as much as 50% of the animal protein requirements, which is sufficient to satisfy requirements for only 120 days. From this depiction based on the prevailing production levels, it is possible to satisfy only about 32% of the annual animal protein requirements for rural families. Is that possible to increase the contribution of the present system to the family food supply system?  

It would appear that simple changes in management practices (e.g. preferential provision of feed to newly hatched chicks), home remedies (e.g. in door management of chicks) and including attention to small details (e.g. control of predators) are believed capable of bringing losses well below the reported high mortality and in turn improve the offtake rate from traditional chicken farming. It is inferred that improving the offtake from traditional chicken production as goal starting with changing the genetic potential which does not make sense, if not harmful, through cockerel exchange programme or by using improved breeds before showing the producers the possibility of breaking the cycle through vaccination against Newcastle Disease, improving the husbandry aspect and curbing the very high chick mortality is senseless. Above all it is important to make poultry producers aware that there are options and that is possible to increase the benefits from local birds with small additional inputs and improvements in management as the first step for improvement, then thinking about breeding strategy to improve the genetic potential of the local birds. This evolutionary development of the present system to a more productive and efficient one is outlined by Bessei (1987) and Sonaiya (1990). Local farmers understanding and knowledge about poultry production can be used as a base to further endeavours to this end.