Productivity, Management Practices And Disease Incidences Of The Indigenous, Exotic And Crossbred Chickens Under Smallholders’ Conditions In Rajshahi, Bangladesh

Abstract

This research work evaluated the productivity, management practices and disease incidences of various chicken breeds under smallholders’ conditions at 10 Upazillas of Rajshahi District, Bangladesh. The productivity study, conducted on six available chicken breeds viz., Cobb 500 (broiler), cockerel, Fayoumi, indigenous (Deshi), RIR and Sonali from one government farm (GOV), ten private farms (PRI) and ten backyard chicken farms (BCF) from the urban, semi-urban and rural areas of Rajshahi, revealed that the crossbred Sonali was the highest in production number in both the GOV and PRI farms during 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years whereas broilers attained the highest in 2013-14. The BCF earned the maximum profit (profitability index, PI=0.646) than PRI (PI=0.114) whereas GOV showed a negative PI (-0.021) indicating economic losses. The PI values gradually decreased from 2011-12 to FY 2013-14 throughout the entire production period which indicated economic instability in the poultry farming in the study area. Using a five-scale scoring system, eight major management practices (MP) namely, room temperature (RT), water source (WS), vaccination (VC), bio-safety measures (BM), boundary walls (BW), human residence (HR), chicken transportation (CT) and feeding management (FM), were considered to rank the farms under study. On average, GOV farm scored 4.00 indicating good management practices for BW, HR and FM, PRI farms achieved 3.42 for FM but the BCF exhibited a lower level to satisfactory scores (2.23-2.62) for all the parameters. Disease incidences (DI) such as bacterial diseases (BD), viral diseases (VD), fungal diseases (FD), flock-wise disease commonness (FDC) and seasonal disease prevalence (SDP) were taken into account to rank the poultry farms using a five-scale scoring system. Results showed that the GOV farm scored the highest 4.33 (severe to elevated) for SDP, the PRI farms scored 2.74 (mild to gross) for BD, and the BCF scored 1.06 (absent to mild) for FD. The DI parameters showed highly significant differences for BD and SDP (P<0.001) followed by VD, FD and FDC (P<0.01) among the farms during the study period. For meat yield studies, a total of 768 day-old Fayoumi and Sonali chickens of both sexes were divided into 16 diet groups, each containing 16 chickens with 3 replications, reared under four dietary treatments groups viz., T1 (premix, control), T2 (premix + vitA) , T3 (premix + EAAs) and T4 (premix + vitA + EAAs) to evaluate the growth performance, meat features and carcass features. The growth performance parameters included feed intake (FI), live weight gain (LWG), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and survivability (SB); the meat features were dressing yield (DY), total meat (TM), breast meat (BM), dark meat (DKM), drumstick meat (DM), wing meat (WM) and thigh meat (THM) and the carcass features were skin weight (SW), abdominal fat weight (AFW), neck weight (NW), head weight (HW) and giblet weight (GW). Analyses demonstrated that Fayoumi was the highest values for FI and LWG while Sonali was the highest for FCR. Male chickens showed the highest FI and LWG but the lowest for FCR than the female ones. The T4 group chickens showed the highest SB followed by T3, T2 and T1 groups. Meat features showed significant differences for LW, TM and BM (P<0.001), DKM (P<0.01) and WM (P<0.05) while, carcass features exhibited significant difference for LW and GW (P<0.001), SW and AFW (P<0.01) among the treatment groups. For egg yield studies, a total of 384 day-old Fayoumi, indigenous, RIR and Sonali chickens were randomized in 16 diet groups, each containing 8 chickens with 3 replications, under four dietary treatment groups mentioned earlier for growth performance, egg production performance and egg quality performance. The growth performance parameters were day-old chick weight (DW), live weight at 20 weeks (LW), live weight gain (LWG), feed intake up to 20 weeks (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), final live weight at 48 weeks (FLW) and survivability (SB); egg production performance included egg weight (EW), age at sexual maturity (ASM), age at peak production (APP), egg production (EP), egg mass production (EMP), feed intake (FI) from 21 to 48 weeks and feed conversion ratio (FCR); and the egg quality parameters were egg weight (EW), egg shape index (ESI), albumen index (AI), yolk index (YI), albumen percentage (AP), yolk percentage (YP), shell percentage (SP), shell membrane percentage (SMP), shell thickness (STH), yolk colour score (YCS) and Haugh unit (HU). Analyses of the data on egg yield studies revealed that Sonali was the highest and indigenous the lowest followed by Fayoumi and RIR for EP. The indigenous chickens attained ASM and APP at the lowest production days while RIR at the highest production days. Moreover, the highest EP was found in T4 group and the lowest in T1 group followed by T3 and T2 groups. The T4 group chickens attained ASM and APP at the lowest production days while T1 group at the highest followed by T3 and T2 groups. Highly significant differences existed for EW, ESI, AP, YP, SMP, YI, STH and HU (P<0.001) among the breeds; while highly significant differences were found for ESI, SMP, AI, STH and HU (P<0.001) among the treatment groups. To sum up, the present results demonstrate that the smallholder poultry farmers maintained sustainable production of their chickens which, in turn, improved the economic conditions of the growers as well as the nutritional status of the consumers in the region. Owing to their smaller size, popular meat characteristics, low cost and suitability for rearing under prevailing environment in the urban, semi-urban and rural areas, the crossbred Sonali chickens appeared to be commercially viable poultry birds in the study area. Since there was no detrimental effects of the feed supplement on the experimental chickens, it is therefore recommended that administration of suitable doses of VitA and EAAs to available poultry feed would result in enhanced growth, survivability, carcass characteristics, egg production and egg quality parameters. Supplement of EAAs only to the feed, however, would contribute to the increased productivity parameters of the chicken breeds under study.