Indigenous chicken farmers’ traits preferences, breeding objectives and marketing systems in Seka Chekorsa and Kersa Districts of Jimma Zone, Southwest Ethiopia

Teshome, F. 2018. Indigenous chicken farmers’ traits preferences, breeding objectives and marketing systems in Seka Chekorsa and Kersa Districts of Jimma Zone, Southwest Ethiopia. MSc thesis in Agriculture (Animal Breeding and Genetics). Jimma, Ethiopia: Jimma University.

A survey with the objectives of studying (trait preference, breeding objectives, management & marketing systems of indigenous chicken) was undertaken in two districts (Seka Chekorsa and Kersa) of Jimma zone which were selected based on their potential for village chickens production. The two districts were stratified into highland (HL), midland (ML) and lowland (LL) agro-ecologies and 385 households, 122 from HL, 155 from ML and 108 from LL were purposively selected for this study. Respondents interview and focus group discussions (FGDs) were employed as surveying techniques and the survey data were analyzed using statistical package for social science (SPSS Ver.20). The overall mean land size, family size and cattle size per household were 0.76±.37 ha, 5.05±.11 and 2.04±.05, respectively. The average chicken size per household were 4.44, 3.24 and 3.70 in HL, ML and LL, respectively and the effective population size ranged from 5.64 to 6.84 with an inbreeding coefficient of 0.08. The average age at first mating (months), age at first egg laying (months), eggs laid per hen per clutch, clutch number per hen per year, clutch length in days, total egg production per year per hen, female and male reproductive life span (years) were 6.16, 6.64, 11.52, 4.11, 24.40, 43.63, 3.19 and 3.52, respectively. Egg production, body weight and adaptability were ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd preferred traits by farmers across all agro-ecologies with index values of 0.50, 0.15 and 0.13, respectively. Body weight (55.6%), comb type (34.3%) and plumage color (10.1%) for male and body weight (59.7%), finger accommodation between the pelvic bones (25.2%) and plumage colors (8.6%) for female were the major selection criteria of farmers in chicken genetic improvement. The Sick chickens, poor productivity and feather color were farmers culling criteria of chickens in the study area. The urgent need of money in the family (31.4%), time of cultural or religious festivals (31.4%), time of disease outbreak (27.0%) and time of cropping season (10.1%) were reasons for farmers selling chickens. The mean price during ordinary and festivals market for mature cock (121.8, 134.3), mature hen (73.3, 79.9), grower (63.6, 65.0) and egg were (2.1, 2.25) birr, respectively. Disease (39.0%), predators (22.1%), feed resource (19.0%), lack of proper housing (10.1%) and lack of marketing access (9.9%) were the major constraints of chickens’ production in the study area. Lack of feeds availability, chicken housing, diseases and predators were factors that hinder the chicken’s productivity. Indigenous chicken were high in adaptive trait than exotic but low in productive trait and community based village chicken breeding/genetic improvement could bridge the problems. Health care and diseases control were very low, especially, vaccination given for chickens was weak, that used as precaution for disease preventive, so vaccination for chickens need attention to save flock of chickens from diseases outbreak. Housing system, especially, at night time need improved shelter by properly constructing house to escape chickens from predators and extreme weathers.