Good Management Practices & Principles of Backyard Poultry farming in Rural India
Edited by-Dr.Nirbhay Kumar Singh
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Veterinary Anatomy
Bihar Veterinary College
Patna
Food is an essential and indispensable part of our life. The worldwide sources of food are agriculture and livestock. These two important farming practices have immense contributions to the world as well as the Indian economy (Gowane et al., 2019). The development and maintenance of livestock are considered an integral part of the Indian agriculture system and contribute in many ways to the growth and development of the small agricultural sector especially in rural areas (Banda et al., 2021). Livestock provides financial assistance in the production of nutritious food products, in generating income and employment, and timely support during droughts. In addition, livestock farming is an essential and promising practice for environmental protection, ecosystem integrity, bio-energy supply, production of biofertilizers, bio-fuels that save on the use of nonrenewable energy sources and greatly reduce environmental pollution (Scherr et al., 2008). Therefore, apart from agriculture, the growing population in emerging and developing countries like India gets its food requirements from livestock. Among different animal agriculture practices, poultry farming provides a good, sustainable source of meat and eggs as a daily requirement across the country (Vaarst et al., 2015). In the current scenario, poultry farming has been growing at a very fast rate and is still expected to show a climb high in the future. According to the 20th Livestock Census report, it was estimated that total poultry birds in India count as 851.8 million. Interestingly, among them, 250 million (near about 30%) are considered as ‘backyard poultry’ mainly maintained by small and marginal farmers (Padhi et al., 2016). The small farmers (who have 5,000-25,000 poultry birds) in the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala and Assam have the highest poultry populations (Kolluri et al., 2019). Indian small farmers generally reared chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese for poultry purposes. Worth mentioning that, India has made considerable development in the production of broiler chicken during the last two decades. With the rise of scientific and technological advancements, poultry farmers are introducing high-quality breeds, standard poultry farming equipment, good rearing infrastructure, vaccines, and effective medicines to maintain healthy poultry chickens. As a result, India achieved the ranks of the fifth largest producer of poultry broiler and the fourth-largest producer of eggs in the world as well (Hafez et al., 2020).
Importance of backyard poultry farming in India
Although poultry farming has shown a very promising and rising trend in recent days, the major growth of this industry was found confined in urban or semi-urban areas of the country. It is easily understandable that most of the rural population don’t have opportunities to access fresh eggs and chicken meat from intensive farming or commercial poultry sectors due to a lack of proper preservation facilities and very little demand for processed meat (Devi et al., 2014). It’s a fact that 65% of the Indian population is estimated as rural people (Kumar et al., 2020) and their staple food is carbohydrates like rice and wheat. They don’t get a substantial amount of protein from their daily food. Therefore, it is extremely important to protect them from malnutrition and associated diseases by providing them with balanced nutrition with animal protein supplements. To overcome this issue, along with the intensive poultry production system, backyard poultry farming (BYPF) using highquality chicken breeds or native breeds is not only drawing huge attention but also acquiring popularity in the rural population to resolve the problems of hunger, malnutrition and protein deficiency (Alders et al., 2018). Moreover, BYPF would be a potential subsidiary income source among the rural people in our country.
Phases of backyard poultry farming
There are two important phases of backyard poultry farming including, a) nursery rearing and b) free-range rearing. a) Nursery rearing: The most important point in nursery rearing is artificially providing proper feed, temperature, protection to the newborn chicks (Hedlund et al., 2019). This phase is extremely important in backyard farming as it resembles intensive poultry farming in the context of quality feeding, proper management, and good health care practices (Rajkumar et al., 2021). In this phase, chicks are reared until they reach the age of 4-6 weeks and mature enough to start scavenging their feed and protect themselves from their surrounding predators. b) Free-range rearing: Another important phase in which chicks ( between 4-6 weeks of age) are familiarized into the backyards carefully. Poultry farmers should observe the seasonal temperature before introducing the chicks in the backyard. The total number of domestic chicks mainly depends on the availability of area coverage and the source of natural feed. According to experts, a total of 15-20 chicks per family is an ideal number for effective free-range rearing. It was observed that up to 200 chicks are ideal for rearing under a small-scale freerange phase. In that case, chicks are needed a large foraging area and a hygienic poultry house for their night shelter (Tufarelli et al., 2018). To get optimum productivity from chicken, ‘supplementary feeding’ is of utmost importance. In general, chickens reach their protein requirements during foraging in backyards. They scavenge on insects, soil worms, etc. After foraging in the daytime, the chickens should be fed with cereal grains and oilseed cakes in the evening. Through this process, chickens are meet the basic requirements of essential nutrients (Tufarelli et al., 2018). Farmers should give the mixture of stone grit, shell grit, or lime powder as a calcium supplement during the egg-laying phase (Wakenell et al., 2016). It was proven that without proper calcium supplements, chickens often lay brittle or broken eggs, even shell-less eggs (An et al., 2016).
The usefulness of small-scale intensive poultry farming in the rural area
Small-scale intensive poultry farming is mostly practiced by rural, resource-poor people who often experience food insecurity throughout the year. Such a poultry farming model is easily accessible to those rural people, and most importantly it could be a good income and nutritious food source for them to improve food security (Kumaresan et al., 2008). Not only does small-scale poultry farming enhance nutrient utilization in a better way, but also it greatly contributes to mixed farming practices and women empowerment in rural India (Nordhagen et al., 2018). Generally, poultry farmers should start small-scale intensive farming including 200 to a few thousand chickens, which could be reared in a similar way to intensive broiler farming. Intensive farming should be continued till chickens reach a bodyweight of about 1.5 kg in a flock. Such practice is beneficial for the production of meat by using fast-growing chicken varieties including, Krishibro, Vanaraja, Kuroiler, Srinidhi and Rainbow Rooster (Rajkumar et al. 2021). It was estimated that about 10–20% of the backyard poultry farming is continued with this model system, especially in north-eastern states, and large areas in Himachal Pradesh (Thakur et al., 2012). Apart from the beneficial side of extensive small-scale poultry production systems, rural farmers often face significant obstacles to getting full benefits due to disease and predation. Such problems can be overcome with better agricultural and livestock management (Conan et al, 2012).
Importance of microfinancing co-operative poultry farming model in rural India
The micro-financing cooperative poultry farming model was considered beneficial for small-scale intensive farmers who own the local poultry farms and together run and share the profits (Kumar et al., 2015; Chaiban et al., 2021). The successful cooperative poultry model was established by a nonprofit organization in the central part of India with nearly 10,000 farmers. Importantly, most of them were rural women, previously involved in other manual laborworks. After successful training on poultry management, women farmers were provided with initial monetary support by giving a part loan to build the poultry farming infrastructures. In this model system, each farmer is required to start work with 300-400 chicks. Currently, they work with 600- 1000 chickens/batch, and the estimated productivity level is 220 eggs/chicken/year. Moreover, the health and hygiene issues of each poultry farm (known as a cluster) are monitored by the team of para-veterinary personals (Beesabathuni et al., 2018). Nowadays, several microfinance organizations are supporting smallscale intensive poultry farmers in rural areas. The cooperative model was successful in India because of the flourishing and fast-growing input industries, giving procurement at affordable prices for different NGOs to help poor farmers. Studies also suggested that India achieved the position of the third-largest producer of eggs in the world, mostly with the collective efforts of medium and large-scale poultry farms (Chatterjee et al., 2015).
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT OF BACKYARD POULTRY FARMING
