CHARACTERIZATION OF CHICKEN PRODUCTION SYSTEM AND ON-FARM EVALUATION OF INTRODUCED STRAINS AND IMPROVED HORRO CHICKEN IN BAKO TIBE AND DANO DISTRICTS OF OROMIA REGION, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The study was conducted in Bako Tibe and Dano districts, Oromia, Ethiopia; from January 2016 to January 2018 with the objectives to identify indigenous chicken husbandry and breeding practices and to evaluate the performance of exotic( Sasso, Sasso-RIR and Koekoek) and improved Horro chicken breeds under farmer’s management conditions. Field study and data collections were carried out through a semi-structured questionnaire, focus group discussions with key informants, observations and secondary data collection from different sources. Total of 119 households (60 from Bako Tibe and 59 from Dano district), were randomly selected for semi-structured questionnaire interviews for baseline survey. Six kebeles were selected from the two districts (three kebeles per district) with a total of 192 households(32 households per kebele) and eight (8) households per strain owner, were used to evaluate the performance of exotic and improved Horro chickens stains for 44weeks. SPSS and SAS were statistical software employed to analyze the data. The result revealed that the average chicken flock size per household in the Bako Tibe (14.08±1.57) was significantly higher (P< 0.05) than Dano district (6.34±0.64 and ranging from 1-56 and 1-20 birds, respectively. Egg consumption, chick sale and meat consumption were main purpose of keeping indigenous chicken in BakoTibe and Dano districts. The majorities of the respondents in both districts (40.33%) preferred exotic chicken than cross breed, improved local and local breeds with a reason of a large number of eggs produced and have a large body sizes. The study revealed that 87.43% of the respondent in the study districts were practiced selection of hens and cocks for breeding purposes. Farmers gave more emphasis on production of a high number of eggs, body size, brooding ability, leg length to select hens whereas body size, growth rate, leg length, comb shape in their order of importance were the most important traits used to select breeding cocks for next generation. Purchasing of chicken from the local market was the major (66.40%) source of foundation stocks followed by inherited from their ancestors. The result of on-farm performance evaluation revealed that, there was significant difference between interaction of two main effects (districts and strains) (P<0.05) on the traits body weight, average daily gains and hen-day egg production and highly significant difference (P<0.01) was observed on total number of egg produced/hen up to 44weeks. Additionally, significant difference (P<0.05) were shown between strains on age at first lay and egg weight. The result indicates that, the performance of exotic and improved Horro chicken strains were higher than nationally reported performance of local chickens. Sasso exhibited the highest performance in all parameters and it was the most preferred strain by almost all respondents with the mean perception of respondent’s index of 0.94 and 1.00 at Bako Tibe and Dano district, respectively, than other contemporary strains. Generally, chicken production is an important economic activity to improve the livelihood of the smallholder households in the study area. Appropriate multiplication and dissemination scheme should be designed for wider Sasso strains distribution for village poultry producers in this study area and other similar agro-ecologies.