Back Yard Poultry Breeding & Culture
Animal Sciences
DIVERSIFICATION IN RURAL POULTRY CAN BRING MORE INCOME FOR THE VILLAGE FARMERS
In Pakistan, poultry production in rural areas is predominantly based on a free-range system utilizing indigenous domestic bird. This is a family business that plays an important role in the social life of the villagers. The birds are not only raised just to have something to eat but are also an important source of income particularly for rural women. In spite of tremendous progress in commercial / industrial poultry production for last 40 years in Pakistan, rural poultry continues to play an important role in the country’s economy. There are more than 76 million rural poultry birds which contribute 32 % of the egg production and 15 % to the meat production in the country. The rural poultry bids are practically raised under organic farming conditions and their meat and eggs fetch much higher prices than the ones from industrial poultry.
In Pakistan, poultry production in rural areas is predominantly based on a free-range system utilizing indigenous domestic bird. This is a family business that plays an important role in the social life of the villagers. The birds are not only raised just to have something to eat but are also an important source of income particularly for rural women. In spite of tremendous progress in commercial / industrial poultry production for last 40 years in Pakistan, rural poultry continues to play an important role in the country’s economy. There are more than 76 million rural poultry birds which contribute 32 % of the egg production and 15 % to the meat production in the country. The rural poultry bids are practically raised under organic farming conditions and their meat and eggs fetch much higher prices than the ones from industrial poultry.
The families at villages normally make a cage with the material available locally and raise their chickens in the village, or at the fields where a few field-houses are clustered together. Most of the villagers like to put the cage at the side of the house. The number of chickens raised varies from family to family, some raise many and some raise only a few. The approximate flock size maintained by a household in rural areas is 15 birds per family with a higher number of adult birds. At night the adult and young chickens are put together in cages. Early in the morning, the chickens are let out, some rice, grains, kitchen waste or flour is offered to them to peck. The birds remain out side the house throughout the day where they spend their day in scavenging for the food. Usually it’s the mother of the household that looks after the chickens.
Currently, there are few local breeds like Aseel, Naked Neck and Desi are available for the backyard poultry in Pakistan. These breeds have achieved potential to survive under the harsh village condition through a long selection process. These birds have been a part of the rural culture for centuries. During the last 35-40 years in Pakistan tremendous improvement has been made in the poultry industry and highly productive birds have been imported for boosting production, yet no attention has been given to our backyard poultry which is still a significant source of egg production in the country. Rural poultry possesses the bright prospects for future development in view of easy and abundant availability of all the requisite inputs such as land, labor and feed resources in rural areas and lower cost of production as compared to commercial poultry. Our local bird is an excellent adapted bird under the rural backyard system.
Aseel Poultry Breed kept as parental flock for cross breeding experiment
Indigenous breeds of rural birds are resistant to diseases as compared to exotic breeds but production is round 60-70 eggs per year. In order to increase the number of eggs under the existing system, different poultry strains were introduced in Pakistan. These exotic breeds are more susceptible to diseases. The need of the day is to evolve high productive breeds with disease resistance. Effective health coverage, housing facilities and introduction of highly productive chicken will improve backyard chicken production in rural areas of Pakistan. Moreover, raising chickens, ducks, turkeys and quails can increase the income potential of the rural communities. Keeping in view the above facts, Poultry Program started a multidimensional project for poverty alleviation and empowering poor village farmers by introducing non-conventional meat resources like quails, ducks and turkeys as well as providing a new synthetic chicken breed that can live as scavenger bird in backyard rearing system.
Chicks as result of cross breeding of white leghorn hen with Aseel males
Currently experimentation with a new breed of chicken for rural areas is being undertaken. These crossbred chicken have been successful and we are able to produce and sell high yielding chicks, which are expected to be best adjusted birds under the scavenger’s conditions at rural and remote areas. Up till now, we are able to produce & sell more than 2000 chicks of this high yielding breed. The production & selling of these high yielding chicks in continued and we are selling more than 200 chicks every week. Moreover, we will scientifically generate the data up to F2 generation. The breed of chicken, thus developed, will be further multiplied and distributed in rural areas of Pakistan. Rural women will be trained on back yard poultry production and provided with the seed stock for poverty alleviation and empowering woman in rural areas.
Quail farming offers another potential avenue for rural areas. PARC is raising quails and expanding its stock to introduce this low capital input, cheap to maintain and quick turn over venture into rural areas. Selection of superior laying quails (about 250 eggs per year) has been made. These quails are very hardy, once they pass the brooding stage. Their reproductive cycle is short, they only needs 17 days of incubation and approximately 40 days to reach sexual maturity. We are not only maintaining breeder flock of quails, but also supplying to interested farmers for further breeding and commercial rearing.
Quails selected at experiment station
Turkey farming is very popular throughout temperate parts of the world because industrialized farming has made it very cheap for the amount of meat it produces. The domesticated turkey is a large poultry bird. The modern domesticated turkey descends from the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), one of the two species of turkey (genus Meleagris). The optimum body weight of adult male and adult female turkey at the marketing age of 16th week is 7.26 kg and 5.53kg. Turkey farming does not only provide animal protein for the general public, it can serve as a sustainable mean of income generation for rural farmers in Pakistan. Currently, the production and economic parameters of turkey for raising under the rural areas of Pakistan as free range birds are being studied.
Turkeys being raised at National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad
Tremendous improvement has been made in the poultry industry during the last 35-40 years in Pakistan. Many world renowned poultry breeders are producing and supplying grand-parent and parent stock for commercial layer as well as for the broiler farming in the world. Our poultry industry, mostly depends on these commercial lines. Ever since the existence of this industry in Pakistan no attention has been given to our backyard poultry. Our local bird is an excellent adapted bird under the rural backyard system. Desi birds lay around 60-70 eggs per year. In order to increase the number of eggs under the existing system, different strains were introduced in Pakistan. However, due to lack of any selection program the introduced breeds could not perform optimally. Moreover, this haphazard crossbreeding had almost depleted the local desi chicken. Currently, there are few local breeds like Aseel, Naked Neck and Desi (Non-Descriptive) are available for the backyard poultry. Out of these Aseel seems to be best used for developing a dual purpose backyard poultry breed. Aseel is the most established breed with definite characters having adult weight 5-6 lbs. It is the heaviest, hardiest and best suited among the local breeds.
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