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Different Poultry Species and Breeds

All species of poultry are used by rural smallholders throughout the world. The most important

species in the tropics are: chickens, guinea fowl, ducks (including Muscovy ducks), pigeons,

turkeys and geese. Local strains are used, but most species are not indigenous. The guinea fowl

(Numididae) originated in West Africa; the Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) in South

America; pigeons (Columba livea) in Europe; turkeys (Meleagrididae) in Latin America;

pheasants (Phasianidae) in Asia; the common duck (Anas) in Europe; and geese (Anser) in

Asia.

Flock composition is determined by the objectives of the poultry enterprise (see Chapter 1).

In Nigeria for example, the preference is for the smooth-feathered, multicoloured native

chickens or Muscovy ducks. Multicoloured feathers serve as camouflage for scavenging birds

against predators, including birds of prey, which can more easily see solid colours (especially

white). Foundation stock is usually obtained from the market as grower pullets and young

cockerels. A hen to cock ratio of about 5:1 is common. Both sexes are retained for 150 to 300

days, for the purposes of culling, selling, home consumption and gifts, most of which require

adult birds.

In the last 50 years, there has been a great advance in the development of hybrid breeds for

intensive commercial poultry production. This trend is most noticeable in chickens, turkeys and

ducks. The new hybrids (those of chickens in particular) are widely distributed and are present

in every country in the tropics, even in the most remote villages. The hybrids have been

carefully selected and specialised solely for the production of either meat or eggs. These endproduct-

specialised hybrid strains are unsuitable for breeding purposes, especially for mixing

with local village scavenger stock, as they have very low mothering ability and broodiness.

For the smallholder, keeping hybrids means considerable changes are required in

management. These changes are expensive for the following reasons:

􀁸 All replacement day-old chicks must be purchased.

􀁸 Hatchery chicks require artificial brooding and special starting feed.

􀁸 Hybrids require higher quality balanced feed for optimum meat and egg production.

􀁸 Hybrids require more careful veterinary hygiene and disease management.

􀁸 Egg-laying hybrid hens require supplementary artificial light (a steadily increasing daylength

up to 17 hours of total light per day) for optimum (profitable) egg production.

The meat and eggs from intensively raised hybrid stock are considered by many traditional

consumers to have less flavour, and the meat to have too soft a texture. Consumers will thus

often pay a higher price for village-produced poultry meat and eggs. Thus for rural family

poultry keepers, it is more appropriate to maintain and improve local birds to meet this demand.

Chickens

Chickens originated in Southeast Asia and were introduced to the rest of the world by sailors

and traders. Nowadays, indigenous village chickens are the result of centuries of cross-breeding

with exotic breeds and random breeding within the flock. As a result, it is not possible to

standardize the characteristics and productive performance of indigenous chickens.

There is no comprehensive list of the breeds and varieties of chickens used by rural

smallholders, but there is considerable information on some indigenous populations from

various regions. Most of this is based on feather colour and other easily measured body features

(genetic traits), but more detailed data are becoming available. Examples of local chickens from

different parts of the tropics are given in Tables 2.1 to 2.3 below. These evaluations were

usually carried out under intensive management conditions in research stations, as the objective

was to evaluate the local birds’ productivity. More recently, data on the performance of local

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