Causes of Village Chicken Mortality and Interventions by Farmers in Ada'a District, Ethiopia
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2008-06
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Abstract
The present research was conducted in Ada’a District of the Eastern Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. This study was undertaken to investigate the major causes of chicken mortality under village production system and the intervention measures by farmers against the major causes of chicken mortality under village conditions. Data were collected through structured questionnaire from 180 households from 6 peasant associations. Simple random sampling method was used to select the peasant associations and the households. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on farming system characteristics, chicken flock size, composition and dynamics and major causes of chicken mortality and intervention methods employed by farmers. The farming system was characterized by crop-livestock farming systems. Most of the respondents (81.1%) kept poultry 15 years ago and local chicken were common in the study area (72.73% of the total flock size). The majority of the respondents (92.8%) kept their bird as scavenging birds. Wives were more responsible for the management of chickens and they are decision makers in most of the cases (78.9%). The results of the study on flock dynamics revealed that the disposal rate (16.57%) was higher than the increment (5.45%). Chickens were disposed from the flock due to different factors such as disease (86.4%), predation (91.9%), mismanagement (29.4%), bad weather (6.1%), sell and slaughter (56.67%). The most important predators mentioned by the farmers were domestic cat (71.1%), vultures (65%) and mongoose (42.8%). The most common disease problems mentioned by the farmers were Newcastle disease (72.2%), diarrheic diseases (65.8%), diseases characterized by depression and subsequent death (48.4%). Significant proportion of the respondents (48.3%) did not provide modern medicine and those using utilize mainly broad spectrum medicines without consulting veterinarians. The traditional medicaments included different medical leaves of plants, spices, and others. The materials used as medicine are usually mixed with feed and fed to sick birds. Gas oil and smoking leaves of Otostegia integrifolia were used to reduce the chicken loss due to external parasites. It can be concluded that farmers in the study areas are using still traditional type management based on indigenous chicken breeds and scavenging feed resource base and are highly affected by mortality due to predation and diseases. So appropriate management should be taken to control the incidence of disease and reduce the loss of chicken kept under village chicken production systems due to predation and mismanagement.
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Keywords
Chicken, disease, loss, mismanagement, predation, village