Abstract:
A study was conducted to assess the available feed resource (in dry and wet season) and evaluate its chemical composition from the egg layer production and productivity perspectives in Bahir Dar city chicken enterprises. All 33 chicken enterprises were included in this study for survey data and four enterprises were purposely selected based on their representing competency of all enterprises to monitor the actual production performance of the layer in available feed resources for six month (from March 2019 to august 2019). Feed samples (for Bovans Brown breed) both in dry and wet season were taken with three sampling replication from each enterprise and feed dealers for chemical composition analysis. Interview using semi-structured questionnaire was conducted for survey data collection and field observation also carried out to support the survey work. Egg Production performances were monitored for six months. The majorities 60.6% of the layer enterprises workers were females and 39.4% were males. Among all laying hen 11.09% were infected by different disease and from the infected hens 5.54% were dead annually. Disease (36.4%), shortage of feed with high cost (27.3%) and lack of support (training, land, credit (36.3%) from governmental and non-governmental organizations were the main challenges. There were 4 commercial feed resources (Alema, Tabor, Ethio-chicken and Adet) in the study enterprise. Among all enterprises owner the majority of the respondents were used Alema compound feed (42.4%) and the others used Tabor (18.2%), Ethio-chicken (30.3%) and Adet (9.1 %). The DM (90.81%) content of Ethio-checken compound feed was higher than all other feed resources. The CP (16.01%), ash (7.97%), Ca (4.01%),P(0.45%) and ME (2796.78kcal/kg) levels were high in Alema compound feed and CF(2.81%) ,EE(3.0%1)were lower than other feed resources. The average age at first egg of hen in all feed resources were 151.67±2.78 days. Laying hens which utilized Alema compound feed were laying eggs at early age than Tabor and Adet compound feed at the mean difference 2.53 and 5.03 day,
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