RURAL PRODUCTION OF TROPICALLY ADAPTED BREEDS OF CHICKENS IN RURAL AREAS OF KWARA STATE, NIGERIA.

Chicken keeping is a common thing with most household in rural areas of Nigeria. The birds are raised under extensive system of production with little or no feed provided by the farmers for the birds, hence there is the need to compare the rate of egg production of six different breeds of chickens reared under the same conditions in the rural areas. Twelve villages were randomly selected from the long list of villages in Kwara, 20 households per village and 4 villages per senatorial district, with a total coverage of 240 households for the study. The birds that were used for the study were indigenous chicken (Fulani), improved indigenous chickens (Shika Brown, Funaab Alpha and Noiler) and imported tropically adapted birds (Sasso and Kuroiler). Thirty six weeks old pre-vaccinated and brooded chickens of different breeds given to the farmers were managed under the traditional poultry scavenging system in all the three senatorial districts. The nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test was used for the comparison between districts and breeds. There were no significant differences in egg production per senatorial district, egg production from different breeds and production from different senatorial districts remained averagely low. Low egg production by all the breeds showed that scavenging way of rural chicken production should be improved on for better productivity. This can be achieved through supplemental feed formulated and produced from locally available feed ingredients for the chickens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]