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KALRO Kienyeji Indigenous Chicken

Project Category: Projects

Client Name: Richard Kedemi

Date: 2016-06-16

Project Link: View Project

Description:

Develop Climate Smart Indigenous Chicken (IC) technologies for improved productivity

Indigenous chicken is an integral part of rural farming systems where it provides food and nutrition security as well as income to resource-poor smallholders, especially in the Arid and Semi-lands (ASAL), where options for generating income are limited (Guèye, 2009).  Advantages of IC compared to other livestock include low cost of production, and high adaptation to ASAL conditions. Moreover, IC has quick returns to investment, requires simple management practices and its products have numerous market outlets (Tadella et al., 2003). Chicken is also a first step in the process of acquiring larger livestock such as goats and cattle for resource-poor and the disadvantaged, especially women headed households. This makes chicken a suitable enterprise for emergency restocking programs following disasters such as drought in the ASALs. Under ASAL APRP support, KALRO developed two improved indigenous (kienyeji) chicken breed lines (KC) with high egg production and enhanced growth rates. The two KC breed lines have been registered with the Kenya Livestock Breeders’ Association. These two breed lines are now being disseminated to farmers. A big constraint in the adoption of the improved indigenous chicken is the high cost of commercial feeds. Furthermore low hatchability of eggs at farm level has been identified as a constraint. Farmers also want a bird that can go broody to leverage on cost of accessing fertile eggs of improved lines. The following sub-activities are proposed to build up on activities implemented under the ASAL APRP on the indigenous chicken value chain namely:

• Breeding to register more lines for market desired traits,
• Improve on hatchability at farm level
• Develop low cost feed rations and management systems including appropriate housing