Poultry feed resourcesand crop content during Earlydry season in genji district of west wollega Zone of oromia region

Abstract

The study was conducted in Genji district of West Wollega Zone with the objectives of characterization of scavenging poultry feed resource base(SFRB) and evaluation of composition of crop content of scavenging indigenous chicken. A total of 183 households were randomely selected fromthree kebeles of midland(126 respondents ) and two kebeles of lowland (57 respondents) were used to collect primary data on SFRB of the study area. A total of 60 sampledgrower chickens (50% female and 50% male) at an age of 4-6 month, were parchased from rural farmers and slaughtered during early dry season to study the physical characteristics and chemical composition of the crop content.The major poultry feed resources of the study area was reported to be full day scavenging with supplementary feeding with locally available feed materials. About 50.7,23.85, 12, 8.4 and 5.2% of the crop contents of experimental chickens were cereal grains, house-hold leftover/kitchen waste, animal proteins(insects/worms), plant/leaves, and none feed materialsrespectively. There was variation incomposition with altitude and sex of birds slaughtered. The mean weight of the crop content obtained from the cockerels (25 g/day) was significantly lower (p<0.05) than that of the pullets (34g/day),but there were no significant dif erence between altitude in mean weight of crop content of the experimental birds slaughtered.According to the result of laboratory analysis,the dry matter, ether extract, ash,crude protein, crude fiber, nitrogen free extract and calculated metabolizable energycontentof the crop content were 89.37,2.48,14.82,10.88,9.35,62.61% and2552.3kcal/kg),respectively. The percent composition of dry matter, ash, crude fiber, and calcium were significantely( p< 0.05 )higher in the crop content of pullets than in the crop content of cockerels, while crude fiber and crude protein level of the crop contents of the chcikens of the mid altitude were significantly higher(p<0.05) than that of the crop content of chickens of the low altitude. The average SFRB estimated for the Genji district was 237kg dry weight / family /year. The study showed that the nutrient contents of scavengable feed resources during early dry season were below the bird’s requirements foroptimum productivity. However,Poultry keepers must provide suf icient supplementation to their birds rather than simply throwing leftovers "away to the birds".