Abstract:
Exotic chickens are introduced to Ethiopia because of the low performance of indigenous
chickens. This study was conducted in Bahir Dar zuria, Amhara Region with the objective of
monitoring and evaluating the productive and age at first lay of Bovans Brown, Sasso T-44,
and Koekoek chickens under semi-intensive and intensive husbandry systems.Purposive and
random sampling procedures were used. A totalof 44 chicken producers were for a survey
and 350 chickens were selectedformonitoring. The data was analyzed using SPSS Version 16
for the survey and the ANOVA GLM procedure of SAS version 9.0 for monitoring data. The
majority (63.6%)of chicken producers were female. The majority (86.36%) of the chicken
producers were practicing semi-intensive husbandry systems. The body weight of the Sasso T44 chickenat many weeks of age was higher than the other two breeds. Bovans Brown has an
age of first egg laying5.3±0.02month under semi-intensive and 4.53±0.01 inintensive systems,
and have better egg production and HDEP followed by Sasso T-44 and Koekoek breedsin
bothhusbandry systems.The mean egg weight of Sasso T-44 is 53.1±0.94g, BB 51.2±0.74g,
and 49.2±0.52g Koekoek in a semi-intensive system.The intensive husbandry system is more
profitable at 97230.75birr than the semi-intensive husbandry system at 62185.79birr. The high
cost of feeds, the prevalence of disease, predators, and housing problems, were the main
problems related to exotic chicken production.An intensive husbandry system is essential
rather than a semi-intensive husbandry system for better performance and the Government
should give attention to chicken production to minimize the challenges for better chicken
production.