Poultry keeping in India is as old as its civilization. Nearly four decades back most of the eggs and poultry meat was coming from traditional poultry keeping. Typically each family kept a few birds, which were mostly reared by women along with other household chores. Birds received housing only in the form of night shelter and were fed minimally’ by kitchen waste as and when available and were left to subsist and scavenge by themselves in gardens, Village alleys and surrounding farms feeding on crop residues, insects, worms and greed forge. Barns and temporary homestead structures are used to protect the bird from adverse weather and predators or to provide laying shelter.
Backyard Poultry farming is an old age practice in rural India, which comprises of rearing of indigenous birds with poor production performance. The potential of indegenous birds in terms of meat and egg is very low making backyard poultry less profitable, but by using improved breeds like kuroiler, Chebro, Vanaraja/Gramapriya etc backyard poultry farming can be easily boosted up with better production of meat as well as eggs.
Rearing birds in backyard system will benefits the rural poor in following ways
- Backyard poultry keeping is one of the most effective methods to assure the availability of poultry egg and meat in rural areas
- It saves money on eggs, poultry meat, garden fertilizers.
- Poultry eggs & meat, obtained from backyard by rearing hen is the cheapest source of animal protein to combat the malnutrition of rural poor.
- Eggs and meat from backyard have better taste and flavor and fetch more money if marketed because the production is nearly organic.
- It makes minimal use of land labor and capital and provide small but regular source of income.
- It is one of the important resource for landless labors and those who do not posses cattle sheep or goat.
- It does not require specific type of housing feeding and management hence even illiterate people, ladies and children can manage.
- Once started with very limited investment the cycle continues from generation to generation with small investment.
- This system avoids the cruelty of modern intensive system of poultry management.
- Poultry production is being recognized as an important tool of socioeconomic improvement among the weaker section of the society due to its triple benefits viz. generation of self employment, supplementary income and availability of cheap source of protein to combat the malnutrition.
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