ON-FARM EVALUATION OF HAY BOX BROODER EFFECTIVENESS ON SASSO AND INDIGENOUS CHICKS

This study was conducted in South Gondar Zone to evaluate the effectiveness of hay-box chick brooder under rural farming condition with the use of Sasso and Indigenous day old chicks. Based on their voluntariness to construct the hay box brooder, fifteen households were selected purposively. A total of 150 indigenous and 450 Sasso T-44 day old chicks were divided equally in to 15 groups each with 10 indigenous and 30 Sasso day-old chicks. The Sasso groups were active and vigorous after the first week of hay box brooding: whereas the indigenous groups were found to be difficult to adapt to the hay box brooding environment and characterized by dull appearance, noisy voice/sound, huddling together, wing dropping, poor feed and water consumption and stunted growth throughout the brooding period. About 85 and 50% of Sasso and indigenous chicks survived at 8 weeks of age of hay box brooding respectively. Hay box brooding technology is effective in rising exotic baby chicks under rural Ethiopian conditions as compared to the performance of natural brooding. On the contrary, the survival rate of indigenous chicks assigned to the hay box brooder was comparable to that of natural brooding. Therefore, it seems that the hay box chick brooding technology is not adequately effective in raising indigenous chicks as measured by chick growth performance and rate of survival 8 weeks of age.