Effectiveness of Traditional Methods of Incubation and Hatching of Eggs Among Indigenous Poultry Keepers in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study assessed the effectiveness of traditional methods of eggs incubation and hatching among indigenous poultry keepers in Kwara State, Nigeria to unravel the improvement in the techniques over time. Purposive and snowball sampling procedure were used to select 80 household local poultry keepers who were interviewed using structured questionnaire and the Key Informant Interview (KII) method for data collection. Four Local Government Areas were purposively selected while a non-probability snowball technique was used to select 80 respondents who are known for rearing indigenous chickens. Variables were appropriately measured. For example effectiveness was measured with a 4 point rating scale of Not Effective scored 1 point, Slightly Effective scored 2 points, Moderately Effective scored 3 points and Very Effective scored 4 points as the dependent variable while the independent variables were measured as either nominal, ordinal and interval scales. The results showed that poultry keepers in the study area identified natural incubation (64.0%) as the most common method of egg incubation, followed by kerosene incubator (63.4%) indigenous fabricated incubators (50%) and lastly by electric incubator (48.0%). Further results revealed that natural incubation (Mean = 2.66) was the most common method of incubation among local poultry farmers while kerosene incubation (Mean = 2.57) was ranked second with indigenous incubator (Mean = 2.19) occupying the third position in the mean ranks while electric method occupied the 4^th and last position. There was a positive and significant relationship between respondents' knowledge of incubation (r = 0.547; p ≤0.01) and the effectiveness of incubation among indigenous poultry keepers. The study established that indigenous incubation with the use of natural brooding was the most effective incubation method among the indigenous poultry keepers and knowledge of incubation was very crucial to an effective incubation process. This study adds to the body of scanty knowledge on traditional poultry incubation and hatching process.

Key words: incubation methods, local chicken, domestic chickens, small-scale poultry, village poultry.