PRODUCTION CHALLENGES OF COMMERCIAL LAYING HEN AND FARMERS' MITIGATION STRATEGIES.

Laying hen farming is an important sub-sector of the Nigerian livestock industry as it provides significant proportion of the needed animal protein to the populace as well as creating employment opportunities. Despite the significance of the laying hen industry to the national economy, farmers are usually faced with a lot of risks and uncertainties such as heat stress, flood, fire outbreaks, theft and unpredicted damages. They pose serious threat to the success of the laying hen farming enterprise in Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed in selecting Laying Hen Farmers (LHF) in Lagos and Oyo States. The first stage was the purposive selection of Lagos and Oyo states in South-west (SW) being the highest poultry production areas in the SW, Nigeria. The second stage involved the selection of six Local Government Areas (LGAs) from Lagos state and eight Local Governments from Oyo state. The third stage was the random selection of one hundred and ninety-eight (198) and three hundred and nine (309) laying hen farmers selected from Lagos and Oyo State, respectively, giving a total of five hundred and seven (507) laying hen farmers selected for the study. Majority have access to credit facilities (87.1 %) and extension services (84.7 %), while there was poor access to insurance across the locations. The most prevalent production risks among the LHF were attack of predators, pest and disease infestation. Age, education and livestock insurance reduced the probability of exposure to production risks, while household size, access to extension and distance to residence increased the probability of LHF exposure to production risks. Educational status, flock size, access to livestock insurance and access to credit significantly increased TFP, while farming experience, feed quantity, hired labour and extension access reduced TFP. The probit results show that age, household size, education, access to resources and insurance significantly affect production risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]