Training Program

view gallery THERE ARE THREE MAIN SECTIONS TO BE LEARNT 1. Housing 2. Feeding 3. Breeding Improved chicken keeping will help provide better food for the people, better food gardens and to also provide some cash income from the sale of surplus chickens and eggs. The lessons are designed to be used together with a printed training manual and also a demonstration model of a village chicken house and flock of chickens for practical training lessons. Nearly every village has a few chickens or kokorako wandering freely but usually they are not being cared for properly by their owners. If these chickens were kept safe in a special house and given enough good balanced food every day then they will supply many more eggs and breed more chickens to eat or sell. There are often imported chickens available too but sometimes they can be too expensive to buy and some need expensive imported food. Both the village chickens and imported chickens can be bred together and fed local foods such as fruit and vegetables, coconut and copra, fishmeal, corn, sorghum and rice.

Checklist for your village

To be able to learn how to improve your village chickens you need to first look at your village to see what is happening with them at the moment. To do this, answer the following questions for yourself. 1. How many chickens are in the village now? (Is there already enough to start a project?)   2. How many hens, how many roosters? (Only one young rooster is needed for ten hens. There are usually too many roosters competing for the hens)   3. Are they village chickens or imported chickens?   4. Are they old or young? Do you think your adult chickens are too old to produce eggs?   5. How many hens have chickens? How many chickens does each hen have?   6. Do you know about any nest where a hen is sitting on some eggs? How many eggs does she have?   7. Is it easy for you to find eggs that your hens have laid?   8. How many eggs does a village hen usually lay? How long does it take for those eggs to hatch into chickens?   9. How many chickens usually hatch under each hen?   10. How many survive from that clutch to grow up?   11. Do you know why only one or two chickens survive?   12. Do you notice when some chickens are really sick?   13. Does someone give any proper food to your village chickens?   14. Does the hen with the new chickens get special food for her babies to eat?   15. Do you notice if cats, dogs, hawks or snakes kill your chickens?   16. Does every family keep chickens?   17. Do they produce enough eggs and meat for the whole village?

Discuss What do you plan to do with your own improved village chicken keeping training? Start a small village chicken project for the family. Start a bigger chicken project to help the whole village Start a commercial chicken keeping business Train other people how to care for chickens better Start a specialist chicken breeding business