THE REALITIES ABOUT POULTRY The Modern Farm - The Realities About Poultry_Seco | Page 18

After selling the poultry, remove the used litter from poultry house by machine or hand. This
litter can be used as good manure in the agricultural land for crop cultivation. In some area
areas
poultry manure and litter is very valuable and an extra source of earning cash. Dry poultry
manure contains 3.84% nitrogen, 2.01% phosphorus and 1.42% potassium. In a word, poultry
manure is very suitable for making soil fertile and it can be used in organic farming system.
Poultry y Species and Breeds for Farming
All species of poultry are used by rural smallholders throughout the world. The most important
species in the tropics are:
e: chickens, guinea fowl, ducks, pigeons, turkeys and geese.
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
cross-breeding with
exotic breeds and random breeding within the flock. As a result, it is not possible to stand
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
vari ous regions. Most
of this is based on feather colour and other easily measured body features (genetic traits
traits).
Characteristics such as adult body weight and egg weight vary considerably among indigenous
chicken populations, although reproductive traits such
suc h as the number of laying seasons per year, the
number of eggs per clutch and hatchability are more consistent.
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