Backyard poultry (chicken) farming in CHT (Rangamati)

Abstract

The present study was carried out to investigate backyard chicken production systems in three upazilla- Naniarchar, Mahalchari and Langudu, under the district of Rangamati, Bangladesh. About 60 households were selected from these areas. Fifteen villages from three Thana (5 villages from each) and 4 households per village were taken as selected area. Feeding systems and availability of feed for raising chickens and production performance of scavenging and semi-scavenging chickens were evaluated. Information was collected from the farmers through a questionnaire. The study revealed that the highest number (25) of chicken per farm was found with large farmers, while the lowest (4) was found with landless farmers. Stratified Simple random sampling technique was followed to collect data. The highest number of chicken was available at the farm household during April-June, 2015 (summer) and that was the lowest during July-September, 2015. Highest number (85) of eggs per bird was found during January-March, 2012, while the lowest (45) was during July-September, 2015.

About 15% of the farmers of Naniarchar used mixed feed, but in Langudu only 12% of farmers fed mixed feed to their chickens & the rest was either paddy or fermented rice alone or a mixture of both. The hatchability rate was 89% in Naniarchar, 88.5% in Langudu, but in Mahalchari it was only 85%. The results were highly significant (p=.0000). Land holding size of the farmer owner is on an average medium farmers are 22%,20% and 24% respectively.