Abstract

The aims of the study were to characterize the socio-economic features of village chicken producers, types of chicken production systems, flock management practices, family task sharing and production constraints in lowland, midland and highland of Ethiopia. Data were collected at 360 rural households of which 120 were from lowland, 160 midland and 80 highlands. A standardized questionnaire was used to collect the data using person to person interview method. The extensive chicken management system was predominant in all of the three agro-climatic zones. Most of the studied parameters were different (P<0.01) across agro-climatic zones. Based on the whole data set, 77.9% of the households practiced an extensive form of chicken management system. However, the proportion was much higher (90%) in lowlands. From the visited 360 poultry farms, 96% of them had native chicken breeds, 3% had exotic chicken breeds and the remaining 1% had crossbreds. Chicken ownership was pre dominated by rural women than men in all of the three agro-ecological zones. Regarding family task sharing in rural poultry production systems, women were responsible for 47.9 to 77.6% of farm activities. The major production constraints and/or problems were the lack of high performing chicken breeds and disease occurrence during the period in which this study was carried out. Newcastle disease was the most prevalent health problem at 61% of the visited farms and it was highly important in all of the three agro-ecological zones. Our findings will support agro-ecology based interventions for improving village chicken management systems and enhance their economic contributions to the farmers.  

Key words: Agro-climatic zone, flock management, production constraint, production system, task sharing, village chicken.