Production Environment and Management of Native Chicken in Tublay, Benguet.

Abstract

The survey on the Production Environment and Management of Native Chicken was conducted in the five selected barangays of Tublay, Benguet in February 6 to April 30 2016. This was conducted primarily to determine the socio-economic profile of the respondents, the flock management of native chicken in terms of production and marketing, aspect of native chicken production such as management and environment, the problems encountered by the respondents in raising native chicken and to generate information on the geographical distribution of native chicken. The study involved 384 respondents who are raising native chickens from the top five barangays of Tublay. Among the randomly selected 384 respondents, 259 (67.45%) are males and 125 (32.55%) are females. Most of the respondents had ages ranging between 41 and 50 years old. Likewise, most (49.22%) of them have reached high school level and majority (197 or 51.30%) of them are farmers. Most (121 or 31.51%) of the respondents had been raising native chicken for 11 to 20 years. Most of the respondents are maintaining 0-5 heads of chicks, hens and pullets and 1-10 heads of rooster. Natural mating is the only method observed by the raisers. They just allow the male chickens to breed the existing female chickens in the flock until the birds become old or are sold. Among the strains of native chicken, as described by Bondoc (1998), Banaba is the strain mostly raised in Tublay most especially in barangay Ambongdolan. This is followed by Camarines, Paraoakan, Labuyo and Darag. However, there are some other native chickens observed in the area that resemble the pumage color as described by Lazo (1992) and these are the Itim, Lasak and Talisayen. In egg production, pullets lay their first egg at 7 months old with the maximum number of egg laid per clutch ranging from 10-14. Native chicken lay eggs 2 to 3 times a year with a dominant egg shell color of light brown. Out of the 384 respondents, 349 of them adopted range with no housing where birds are free to roam around and lesser attention is required. However, 201 of them practice semi-intensive system of management where chickens are kept in pens at night and brought out during the day. Most of the respondents do not feed their chickens with pure commercial feeds. Rather, they provide farm by products in combination with kitchen refuse. All the respondents claimed that they raise native chickens mainly for meat or for home consumption. Finally, the problems commonly encountered by the raisers in raising native chicken are the presence of diseases, parasites, predators and thieves. Based on the results of the study, it is recommended that further studies should be conducted to find solutions or create strategies to improve the native chicken production and management especially in terms of medication since diseases is the main problem encountered by the raisers.