Poultry farmers get high-producing genotypes from ACGG to triple egg production

The African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG) is providing stronger chicken genotypes to poultry farmers to enable them raise productivity of birds and eggs.

According to ACGG, the objective of this initiative is to transform small-holder chicken farms into commercially viable enterprises, with active private sector engagement that empowers rural women and increases income and nutrition of their families through delivery of more productive, locally- adaptable chicken production inputs and service to rural communities.

Speaking at a press conference held in Lagos on Monday, Funso Sonaiya, principal investigator of ACGG, said the project, a product of science and innovation, has produced six genetics.

“Two of the chickens are from outside the country. One is from France, and another one from India. The remaining are from Nigeria. Those are the genetics that science has produced and what is different about them is that they are better introduction than the local chickens,” Sonaiya said.

He said the significant thing about the genetics was that they performed better than the local chickens even under a severe environment, stressing that while the locals could  lay about 45 to 60 eggs in a whole year,  the stronger breeds would churn out up to 150 to 200 eggs a year.

“That is about three times and that is an improvement. The locals will reach adult size of about 1kg and that adult size is about 20 weeks. These improved ones, by the time they are 20 weeks, they are about 3 kg. That is another three times. So we think these are important developments that small-holder farmers should take advantage of,” he said.

“We have extracted the genes from the chickens through the blood and we can always use them. But we also want to be sure that live banks are available, so we are working to ensure that breeders and farmers would be able to continue to produce these breeds and make available and also improve them,” he explained.

He explained that the institution would be testing the genetics to find out how strong they were under the small holder conditions.

“We are going to follow their preferences because they are the ones who take care of the chickens. We want to find the true most preferred buds, and we have collected data that we can look at,” he stated.

Illiya Duniya, an engineer and marketing system director, Propcom Maikarfi, said everything new had its own challenges, adding that what farmers needed to do was to start small and then grow from medium to big.

 

ODINAKA ANUDU & ANGEL JAMES