Suitability of home made hay-box chick brooder to the Ethiopian household paultry production system
2000
Solomon Demeke (Jima College of Agriculture, Jima (Ethiopia))
A study was initiated to evaluate the suitability of home made hay-box chick booder to both urban and rural local conditions of Jima and Bedele areas aimed at developing regional body chicks extension package. two experiments were conducted to study the growth of batches of 50 and 70 White Leghorn body chicks raised in hay-box and electric brooders and the survival rates of 6240 chicks distributed to rural farmers and urban dweller's in the hay-box brooders of 10, 30, 50 and 70 chicks capacity respectively. In experiment 1, batches of 50 and 70 chicks were successfully raised using home made hay-box brooder. there was no significant difference between the groups raised in the hay-box and electric brodder in rates of mortality, growth and maturity to an age of the first egg (P0.05). In experiment 2, about 95%, 88% and 80% of the distributed hay-box groups of chicks survived to an age of 2, 4 and 8 weeks respectively. About 35% of the total mortality recorded occurred during the last three weeks of brooding, when chick brooding temperature is not critical in the tropics. Predation and unsuitable hay-box and hay-box run design, both of which are preventable were responsible for 35% of mortality to an age of 8 weeks. domestic cats and dogs were found to be highly damaging in the urban area, while wild birds were generally blamed in the rural areas. The results of both experiments indicated that hay-box brodder in which no artificial heat is employed seems to be promising for the promotion of exotic household poultry at least within the Ethiopian urban and rural population with similar agro-ecological conditions to that of Jima and Bedele areas of Oromiya Region.
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