Abstract:
As desi poultry farming is an integral part of rural households everywhere in Pakistan, therefore a preliminary study was launched to highlight some aspects of this farming system prevailing in southern Punjab. For this reason data was collected from 30 households and was subjective to descriptive statistical analysis. The farmer’s family size averaged 6.4±1.6 with average monthly income of Rs. 14322.6±3026.4. These rural household had on the average 11.4±4.5 hens, 2.1±1.1 cocks, 6.9±4.5 chicks, and 4.5±3.4 laying hens. Majority of them kept hen in khuda (a small need-based structure like small room for keeping birds). Most of them offer grains to the desi birds and majority was aware of poultry diseases, mainly keeping desi birds. Without having any special training, vaccinating the birds for Rani Khet (New Castle disease). Most of them hatched chicks of their own, bought hens from the village, knew about ill birds and benefitted from the birds. Mostly they kept birds for sale, disliked cock fighting, provided positive gesture about poverty alleviation and showed minimum concern about poultry problems. It is concluded that poultry keeping in rural household provides a potential source of income with minimum health care and problems and adding to the income of households. This small-scale entrepreneurship might bring higher income to rural households and may help in alleviation of poverty a mass scale in rural areas.
Keywords:
Desi poultry
,
Rural
,
Income generation
,
household
,
Poverty alleviation