ASSESSMENTS OF CHICKEN HUSBANDRY PRACTICES, PRODUCT UTILIZATION AND EGG QUALITY IN ALEFA DISTRICT CENTRAL GONDAR ZONE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The study was conducted in the two agro-ecologies of Alefa district which is found in the central Gondar zone of Amhara regional state, Ethiopia. The main aim of the study was to investigate farmers’ chicken husbandry practice, product utilization trends and egg quality parameters among chicken breeds. Accordingly, a total of 191 households were selected by systemic simple random sampling technique using semi structured questionnaires. Whereas, eggs quality parameters were analyzed from randomly selected 24 respondents and 1 2 0 eggs (40 from indig enous, cross and exotic chickens). Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPPS 20) and statically analysis system (SAS 9.3) software were used to analyses the collected data. Therefore, the results indicated that about 21.5 % of the respondents were male headed and the remains were female headed. Average numbers of chickens per households were 7.76± 0.13 with the average fixed effect of local, exotic and cross chickens with the value of 3± 0.08, 1.87±0.07 and 2.90 ± 0.08, respectively. About 76.10 %.of the respondents were lived with chickens and 30.9 % were constructed separate poultry houses near to their house. All most all the farmers were practiced in traditional production system with sometime providing supplementary feeds for their chickens like maize (44.2 %), sorghum (28.8 %), barley (15.4 %) and wheat (11.5%). The major sources of water in the area were river, spring, pipe water and underground with the proportion of 47.6, 28.3, 16.8 and 7.3 %, respectively. The main purposes of keeping chickens in the study area were sales of eggs (57.6%) and live chickens on behalf of egg production (78.5%). Whereas, Chicken production was constrained by disease (24%), agricultural extension services (20%), lack of proper housing (19%), predators (18.6 %) and marketing issues (18%) with the opportunities available feed resource (24%), veterinary services (20%),distribution exotic chicken(19%),credit facilities (18.5) and urbanization and population growths versus change of consumption trends (18 %). Annual average live chicken and its products consumption patterns were about 3.41±1.8 live chickens and 4.30.1 eggs per households in the study area. According to egg quality parameter analysis, Average weight of eggs were 49.64gm, 46.03gm (SE=0.55) and the Egg width was 41.84mm and 40.69mm for wet midland and lowland agro-ecologies, respectively. The average albumen height of eggs was 3.63mm, 3.07 mm, 3.74 mm for local, crossbreed and exotics, respectively. The average Hough unit was 47.7 59.9, and 60 (SE=1.22) local, crossbreed and exotics, respectively and the shell weight was 5.25gm for wet midland and 5.07 for low land (SE=0.22). Average Albumen weight was 21.09gm, 24.23gm, 28.42 gm (SE=0.4) and average shape index 76.65,75.37, 74.14(SE=0.2) for local, crossbreed and exotics and also 25.14gm, 24.02 gm (SE=0.42) and 76.64, 74.34 (SE=0.2) in wet midland and low land respectively. Except for Hough unit, the mid land had higher mean values for these parameters than the eggs collected from low land . Similarly, exotic breed has higher mean values than that of indigenous and cross breed eggs. Generally, poor production system, many challenges for chicken production system and poor live chicken and products consumption trends were identified. So, attention should be taken from the concerned bodies on the major production challenges and poor consumption trends