Summary of five years of IAEA funded project on improvement of family poultry in Africa: Results and discussions

During the period of February 1999 and April 2004, a study was undertaken to elucidate the major disease conditions and factors limiting family chicken production in Tanzania. It covered six villages in two zones involving 43 households from which socio-economic data was gathered by use of a structured questionnaire in the wet and dry seasons. During field visits, the birds were clinically examined, various samples collected, sick and dead ones autopsied. There was significant variation in the flock size and structure in the interviewed households. The households kept a total of 1099 and 1352 chickens with an average of 25.5 and 31.4 per household in the wet and dry seasons respectively. The ratio of chick/growers/ adults was 10:10:14 and 11:10:10 in wet and dry seasons respectively. The cocks/hen ratio was 1:3.5. Whereas the average number of clutches per year was 3, the number of eggs per clutch was 12 and therefore the number of eggs was 36 per hen/year. Average hatchability for the two seasons was recorded as 84%. Chick mortality was found to be 30% and resulted mainly from diseases and predation. Only few households did not provide housing at all while majority provided shelters of varying quality. In all the households, scavenging was the system of feeding and sometimes supplemented by household food scraps and local feeds. Several diseases and in particular Newcastle disease (ND) was shown to be the major constraint inhibiting rural chicken development. Women played a major role in family poultry production through provision of labour but men made several decisions on the use of the resources. Blood smears were prepared for proto zoological examination: 349 (wet season), 278 (dry season). Only 11 of the 349 (3.1%) birds in the wet season were infected with Leucocytozoon simondi and Haemoproteus columbae (prevalence 2.8% and 0.3%, respectively). No parasites were seen in the samples collected during the dry season. Fresh faecal samples (209) in the wet season and dry season were collected and examined for egg worm count using the McMaster technique. The cross sectional prevalence study showed that about 77% of faecal samples examined had positive results for helminths. Eight different species of helminths eggs were identified. During the dry season, serum samples were collected from a total of 362 ND unvaccinated birds and analysed by haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test for ND virus antibodies. The results indicated that only 56 (15.5%) birds had positive HI titres at a serum dilution of 1:8 and above while 306 (85.5%) birds were negative. A serologically monitored ND vaccination exercise using thermostable vaccine strain I-2 was undertaken. The results of HI and ELISA tests indicated that vaccinations had been very effective. Population dynamics of the flocks were determined on a monthly basis along with the cost of the interventions. This was used as a basic database for the partial budget determination. Profit was calculated at 81% and the return of investment was 2.5 and hence the vaccination intervention was successful. (author)