ABSTRACT

Rural farmers in Southeast Nigeria are still grappling with production of indigenous chicken despite the development and dissemination of improved management practices for the enterprise in the area. Thus a study which examined the utilization of improved management practices for indigenous chicken production in South East Nigeria was conceived and carried out. The specific objectives of the study included among others to ascertain types of production system used by respondents; examine the level of production of indigenous chicken kept by rural farmers in the area; ascertain respondents awareness of improved management practices for indigenous chicken productions among rural farmers in the area; ascertain farmers perceived attributes of indigenous chicken management practices in the study area. Total of 360 respondents were selected across the zone through purposive and multi-stage random sampling techniques for the study. Structured questionnaire were used to obtain responses from the local chicken farmers who were the target respondents. Data collected were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics (such as frequency counts, percentages, mean etc.) as well as ordinary least square of multiple regression as well as analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the study revealed that the larger proportion of indigenous farmers were female (76.7%) with mean age of 42years. Majority of the respondents were married (66.6%), attained secondary and above (70.6%), were full-time farmers (55.3%), had mean monthly income of N37254.17. /The result indicated that though majority of the respondents were aware of the improved management practices for indigenous chicken production in the study area, yet only use of three management practices namely brooding practices ( =3.09) housing practice ( =3.38) feeding practices ( =3.26) were highly in use by the farmers. The results of hypotheses testing showed that stock size (5.852***), monthly income (1.955**) had significant positive effects on extent of farmers’ use of improved management practices for indigenous chicken production in the study area in the study area. However, farmers’ age (t-2.108**) and household size (t-3.398***) had negative relationships with their use of improved management practices from indigenous chicken production in the study area. Also, the ANOVA result at p<0.05 shows that there was a significant difference in the level of use of improved indigenous chicken production technology across the states of Anambra, Ebonyi and Imo. Further results from DMRT confirmed that use of the improved practices among farmers in Anambra was significantly higher than in Imo and Ebonyi States. However, there was no significant difference in farmers’ use of the improved management practices for indigenous chicken production in Imo and Ebonyi States. In view of the forgoing, it is thus recommended that Government agencies (ADP and Research Institutes) responsible for promoting technologies should organize programmes for training of indigenous chicken farmers and intending ones in the area of Best practices for chicken production in order to increase their level of production (stock size. Also Extension agents should encourage farmers to register with farmers’ co-operative society to enable them have access to bank facility (credit), inputs, grants from government or agency especially in Anambra State and Imo State where there is high respondents that were not members of social group which might be the cause of high percentage of their problem in aspect of input and credit unavailability. Finally, farmers should encourage practicing intensive system of production, proper selection of birds for cross breeding exotic breed/improved local strain to achieve good weight gain and high performance in production.