Flock size and egg production performance of backyard chicken reared by rural woman in Peshawar, Pakistan

K Javed*, M Farooq , M A Mian, F R Durrani and Shah Mussawar
 

Poultry Science Department, NWFP, Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan
*World Wide Fund (WWF), North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan.
geanes@psh.paknet.com.pk

Abstract

A study was conducted during the year 2000 to investigate flock size and egg production performance of backyard chicken maintained by woman in rural areas of Peshawar, NWFP, Pakistan. One hundred and thirty female farmers were selected at random from 13 randomly selected nearby villages of Peshawar city.

Key words: Backyard, chicken, Desi, egg production, Fayumi, flock size, RIR, rural, woman

Introduction

Backyard chickens are primarily kept for egg and meat production on a subsistence basis in rural areas of Pakistan. Qureshi (1985) reported that the majority of the families in Pakistan were producing backyard chicken on a small scale (10 to 12 birds) for family use. Shakir et al (1999) reported a higher flock size per household in Chitral (23.1 birds) than that reported by Qureshi (1985).

A household usually receive eggs from backyard chicken for their family consumption and to some extent for generation of cash income (Bessei 1989). Shakir et al (1999) reported productivities of 2976 eggs/household and 129 eggs/bird on an annual basis under backyard conditions in Chitral. In Charsadda a smaller number of eggs/household (1582) was observed by Farooq et al (2001).

The present study was made to investigate flock size, egg production performance and factors affecting production performance of backyard chicken in Peshawar.

Materials and methods

The study was conducted during 2000 to investigate flock size and egg production performance of backyard chicken maintained by woman in rural areas of Peshawar, NWFP, Pakistan. One hundred and thirty female farmers were selected at random from 13 randomly selected nearby villages of Peshawar city (10 farmers/village). Information regarding family size, flock size, type of chicken, age of the chicken, number of eggs produced and consumed, vaccination practice, housing facility and type of feed given to new born chicks was collected. The data were analysed using GLM (General Linear Model) procedures (Steel and Torrie 1981), univariate and Chi-square tests.  To study the effect of type of chicken, housing facility and vaccination practice on flock size maintained by rural woman in Peshawar, the following  model was constructed:

Y_ijkl = µ + a_i + b_j + c_k + e_ijkl

Where, Y_ijkl was l-th observation on flock size of i-th type of chicken given j-th house facility and maintained under k-th vaccination program, µ = population constant common to all observations, a_i = the effect of i-th type of chicken; i= desi, Fayumi, RIR and WLH, b_j = the effect of j-th housing facility; j= part time housing, no housing and birds reared in human dwellings, c_k = the effect of k-th vaccination program; k= vaccination at the onset of disease, vaccination for Newcastle disease (at day 07, 24 and after every 3 months of chicken's age), vaccination for ND+fowl-pox and no vaccination, e_ijkl = the residual term associated with each Y_ijkl, normally, independently and identically distributed with mean zero and variance 1.

A similar model was used to study the effect of type of chicken, housing facility and vaccination practice on egg production/bird maintained by rural woman in Peshawar.

For comparison of various activities like housing facility and proportion of the farmers rearing different type of chickens, the following form of Chi-square test was used:

x² =  [O (O-E)²]/E

Where "E" were expected events and "O" were observed events.

Results and discussion

Flock size

The flocks were composed of greater numbers of adult birds than chicks (Table 1) and were larger than was reported by Farooq et al (2000; 22.0±1.58 birds) and Shakir et al (1999; 23.1 birds).  The higher flock size in Peshawar than in other areas could be attributed to greater awareness of the farmers about backyard chicken production. Peshawar is a more developed area of NWFP with well established animal institutes compared with other parts of NWFP. The farmers also have an easy access to the nearby market and government hatchery from where they could easily get highly productive birds and advice on backyard chicken production.

The flocks were found to possess higher numbers of desi than WLH chicken. Numbers of Fayumi chicken in a flock were also higher than WLH and RIR.  Farooq et al (2001) also reported small numbers of WLH chicken, Fayumi and RIR chicken in Charsaddathan compared with the present findings. Contrary to the findings of the present study, Shakir et al (1999) reported a higher number of exotic chickens in Chitral. Amongst the farmers, a higher proportion  were rearing desi chicken and smaller proportion were rearing WLH chicken. The proportion of farmers rearing fayumi chicken was also higher than those rearing RIR (Table 2). The smaller number of highly productive exotic chicken like RIR and WLH and higher proportion of the farmers rearing local or fayumi chicken could probably be due to the higher mortality in exotic chicken (RIR and WLH) in the study area. The RIR and WLH chicken are more prone to adverse conditions than local and Fayumi chicken and therefore, the majority of the farmers would have tried to avoid rearing these chickens.

Housing facility had a significant effect on household flock size. Lower  numbers of chickens were found in flocks given no housing facility  than those given part time housing facility (Table 3). The small number of chickens in flocks with no housing facility could be attributed to higher death losses due to stressful conditions or other unforeseen incidents. Naila et al (2001) also reported higher death rates in flocks with no housing facilities in Charsadda, NWFP.

A higher number of chickens/household was found with flock owners vaccinating their chicken against ND+Fowl-pox than those not vaccinating their chicken against diseases (Table 3). Higher flock size has also been reported for flock owners vaccinating their flocks (Shakir et al 1999; Farooq et al 2000 and Naila et al 2001) than in non vaccinated flocks. The higher number of chicken in flocks vaccinated against ND+fowl-pox could probably be due to better immunity development of the chicken ensuring survivability of more chickens.

Egg production and consumption status of a household

Farooq et al (2001) reported smaller number of eggs consumed (658±69.3) and obtained by a household from backyard chicken (1407±5.15 eggs) in Charsadda, whereas a higher number of eggs obtained (2976) and consumed (1255) was reported by Shakir et al (1999) on an annual basis in Chitral. Peshawar and Charsadda are the two adjacent cities and almost similar production is expected; however, the higher annual household egg production and consumption in Peshawar than in Charsadda could be attributed to awareness of the farmers about backyard chicken production and readily available market for eggs and birds.

A higher number of eggs/bird was produced by RIR than by Desi chicken (Table 3).  The higher egg production of exotic chicken than desi chicken could be attributed to their better genetic potential for higher egg production. In fact desi is a non-descript indigenous chicken and so far no efforts have been made to do selective breeding for improving its egg production performance.

Flocks given a part-time housing facility produced higher number of eggs/bird than those given no housing facility (Table 3). Flocks reared in normal human dwellings also produced a higher number of eggs/bird than those given no housing facility. The poor egg production performance of chicken with no housing facility suggested exposure of chicken to adverse conditions. Such chickens were usually spending their nights on trees or other sources where they had no appropriate protection from rain and other hazards.

A higher number of eggs/bird was obtained from flocks vaccinated against ND+fowl-pox disease than those not vaccinated (Table 3). Better egg production performance of chicken has been reported with appropriate health coverage program (Shakir et al 1999 and Farooq et al 2001).

Conclusions

• Flocks vaccinated against Newcastle and fowl-pox diseases performed better than others. Similarly, flocks given a part time housing facility produced higher number of eggs/bird than those given no housing facility.
• Most farmers were rearing local desi chicken.
• Rhode Island Red birds produced higher number of eggs/ bird than WLH, Fayumi or desi chicken.

References

Anonymous  1999-2000  Economic Survey. Government of Pakistan, Finance Division, Economic Adviser's Wing, Islamabad. Pp.21

 

Bessei  W  1989  The problems of extension in rural poultry production in developing countries. poultry. Archiv-fuer-Gefluegelkunde (Germany, FR) (53) 3: 101-107. (in German).

 

Farooq  M,  Shoukat K,  Asrar M, Mussawar Shah,  Durrani F  R,  Asghar A and  Faisal S 2000  Impact of Female Livestock Extension Workers (FLEWs) on rural household chicken production in Mardan division. Livestock Research for Rural Development. (12)4: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd12/4/faro124.htm

 

Farooq  M, Gul  N, Durrani F  R ,  Chand N,  Khurshid A,  Ahmed J and  Asghar A 2001  Production performance of backyard chicken under the care of women in Charsadda, Pakistan. Livestock Research for Rural Development. (14)1: http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd14/1/faro141.htm

 

Naila  C, Farooq M,  Durrani F  R,  Asghar A and Pervez  2001  Prevalence and economic ramification of Newcastle Disease in Backyard chicken in Charsadda. Online J. Bio. Sci. 1(5):421-424.

 

Qureshi M  S  1985  Annual report of Poultry Research Institute Rawalpindi. Pakistan. pp. 26

 

Shakir K, Mian M A and Farooq M 1999 Contribution of backyard chicken to rural household economy in Chitral. MSc  (Hons). Thesis. NWFP, Agricultural University Peshawar.

 

 Steel R G D and Torrie J H 1981  Principles and procedures of statistics; A biometrical approach. 2nd. Ed. McGraw-Hill, Singapore.

 

Received 6 September 2002; Accepted 31 August 2003

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