Assessment of Broiler Farm Practices and Production Efficiency in Hathazari Upazila, Chattogram

Abstract

Broiler farming has paid a great contribution in improving the socio- economic status of people in under developed country like Bangladesh. The productivity and profitability of broiler farming largely depends on good management practices. The present study was conducted on selected broiler farms to know about the socio-economic status of the farmers, managemental practices adapted by them and overall production performance of the broiler chicken in Hathazari region, Chittagong. The data for this study was collected by direct interview to farmers, visual inspection of farms and farm records through a pre-formed questionnaire. Through the study, it was found that most of the farmers are of young age (60%), started farm with own money (60%), received no training (90%), has experience of 6-10 years (50%) and has taken farming as main occupation (70%). Considering management practices, 50% of the farmers collected day old chick (DOC) from Kazi Farms Limited through local dealers. The housing system was intensive, open sided with kacha (60%) and paka (40%) floors and tin shed roof. In all farms sawdust was used as litter material in study region due to unavailability of rice husk. Electric brooding was done in all farms with duration of 5-7 days in summer and 10-15 days in winter and 50% of farmers did not measured temperature during brooding. Most of the farmers used feed of Kazi brand (30%) followed by Paragon (20%), ACI (20%), Aman (10%) and Nourish (10%). Broilers were reared for 28-35 days. The most common disease in this area is Infectious Bursal disease (66%). Most farmers maintained vaccination schedules but hygiene condition were minimal, with no foot bath and unrestricted public access. All the farmers used different growth promoters, antibiotics, liver tonics, vitamins in broilers. The average mortality rate of the studied farm was 3.36%, average final body weight was 1.7 kg and average feed conversion ratio (FCR) was 1.26. It is concluded that the information gathered through this study would be beneficial in developing enhanced poultry management strategies in the study area.