On-farm evaluation of production performance of sasso and kuroiler chickens in Mvomero district, Morogoro

Dissertation

Improved breeds of chickens such as Kuroiler and Sasso are currently the most favourable chickens in developing countries. In African countries, these breeds have been tested for suitability under smallholder environment in Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. The breeds are dual purpose with higher body weight and lay more eggs than the local chickens. They are more resistant to diseases and are able to scavenge on locally available feeds than the commercial birds. These breeds have good potential to improve the economies and health of smallholder farmers in Tanzania. However, knowledge related with management practices of these breeds such as housing, feeds and feeding and health care (disease awareness, control and prevention) is crucial to optimise their genetic potentials. This study was aimed at evaluating on-farm production performance of Sasso and Kuroiler chickens reared under farmer’s management conditions in Mvomero District. Two villages namely, Luhindo and Sokoine were involved in this study. Thirty one (31) farmers, 16 from Luhindo and 15 from Sokoine were included in this study. Chickens were purchased and reared for the first 7 weeks at Sokoine University of Agriculture and then distributed to the farmers. Each farmer received 18 chickens of mixed sex. The assessment of farmers' management practices such as housing, feeds and feeding and health care was carried out using a structured questionnaire. The assessment of poultry housing was carried out through observation of features required for a poultry house including the quality of materials used for construction. Feeds and feeding practices were assessed based on the feeding program, the type of feeds and the number of feed ingredients used during feed formulation. In addition, health care, bio security issues such as overall cleanness and disease awareness were also assessed. Data collection started the day the chickens were distributed to the farmers and the recording was carried out four times at four weeks interval except for mortality, which was recorded when it occurred during the period of study. Data on poultry performance (weight measurement) and mortality were collected through well designed forms where by trained expert from ACGG Project and farmers participated in record keeping. Data related to management practices were analysed using SPSS whereby, descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages were computed. Data on the overall management practices of the two villages and within individual villages were collected and analysed to determine whether there were any differences that existed. In addition, a combination of village management factors that led to optimum growth performance of chickens were determined by analysing the data from farmers having chickens with large body weight performance. Data of body weight performance and mortality rate were analysed using SAS version 20 and Chi-square respectively to evaluate the birds’ performance and mortality in relation to breed, village, sex and management practices. Housing as one of the management practices was assessed and shown to be in an adequate condition except for the type of floor, whereby 79 percent of poultry house floor were made on earth. Fifty-five (54.8) percent fed their chicken using homemade feed (mixture of three and above feed ingredients) and 45.2 percent used supplementary feeds like maize corn, maize bran, food left overs and other scavengable feeds. About 50% of the farmers used maize bran, sunflower seed cake and fish meal to compound the diets. Most of farmers were providing feed (48.4%) and water (58.1%) twice per day. Also, the findings showed that 51.6 percent of farmers had modern drinkers and feeders and 48.4 percent had local made feeders and drinkers. In case of health care, Newcastle was the most common disease (100%) followed by Infectious coryza (93.6%), Fowl typhoid (87.1%) and Fowl pox (54.8%). Few farmers could identify diseases such as Coccidiosis (29%) and Gumboro (19.4%). Newcastle, fowl typhoid, Fowl pox and Infectious coryza were reported to occur more frequently than other diseases. Disease control and prevention were the biggest challenge to farmers as only 32.3 percent of farmers were able to treat and isolate their chickens after disease eruption while the majority of them (67.7) did treatment only. In addition, 87.1, 12.9 and 12.9 percent of farmers knew how to prevent chickens against Newcastle, Gumboro and Fowl pox diseases respectively. Few farmers (41.9%) dewormed their chickens. Also, for those farmers preventing and controlling their chickens against diseases they do upon their understanding of the specific disease. Drugs used for poultry treatment by most of the farmers depended on their preference and their availability in the area. Regarding the adequacy of housing management practice 48.4 percent scored good, 45.2 percent medium and 6.5 percent scored low. However, on feeds and feeding practice in both villages, many farmers fell into medium level (58%) followed by good level (35.5%) and then low level (6.5%). With regards to health care, 54.8 percent of farmers were in the medium level, 29 percent were in the low level and 16.1 percent had good health care practices. Comparison between management practices levels in the two villages showed that Luhindo village scored higher on feed and feeding practices (Good level – 48.3%, Medium level – 50% and Low level 6.2) compared to Sokoine village (Good level - 26.7%, Medium level – 66.7% and low level – 6.6%). Moreover, Sokoine scored better in terms of housing (Good level – 53.3% and Medium - 46.7%) and health care (Good level - 13.3%, Medium level – 66.7% and Low level 20%) compared to Luhindo village which scored 43.8% - good, Medium - 43.8% and 12.4 – low level for housing and for health care were 13.3% - Good, 66.7% - Medium and 20% - Low level. In the prediction of management practices, levels required for optimum performance of these breeds under village conditions the results showed that, good or medium level housing, better feeding (good) and health care (good or medium) were associated with better bird’s performance. The average growth rate of these breeds of chickens for 12 weeks of study was 13.8±0.4g/d and 10.2±0.4g/d for Kuroiler and Sasso respectively. The body weight at 20 weeks of age of birds in Luhindo village was significantly higher (p≤ 0.05) (1895.4±54.3g) compared to Sokoine village (1717.2±60.5g). Breed-wise Kuroiler, had significantly higher (p≤ 0.05) body weight (1937.2±60.4g) than Sasso (1687.4±54.5g) up to week twenty. The mean body weight for the three management levels were 2086.3±57.2g, 1805.2 ±25.8g and 1527.4±144.9g for good, medium and low level respectively. The overall mortality was 18.8% which was contributed mostly by diseases (90.5%). Mortality rate was generally associated with management levels and there were no significant differences between breeds and villages. Correlation analysis showed a strong positive relationship between growth performance and feeds and feeding (r = .893) compared to growth performance and health care (r = .415) as well as growth performance and housing (r = .093).

African Chicken Genetic Gain (ACGG) Project