Economics of Egg Production among Poultry Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was conducted to examine the economics of egg production in Oyo state, Nigeria with a view to not only estimate the cost and return but to also identify the relationship between inputs and output of egg production. The population of the study consisted of registered poultry farmers with Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Oyo state branch. Multi stage sampling techniques were used to select 120 poultry farmers for the study. Well structured questionnaires were used to collect data and the data were analyzed using descriptive, multiple regression and gross margin methods. The descriptive statistics which measured the socioeconomic characteristics showed that majority (78.3%) of the respondents were male with mean age of 48 years. The findings further showed that feed (p<0.01), medication (p<0.05) and flock size (p<0.01) significantly affected egg production in Oyo state and all the significant variables had positive relationship with layers production. The cost and return analysis showed that egg production is a viable foray with profit margin of N316,080 per production season (100 layers). The major constraints of egg production were identified as high cost of inputs, limited finance and disease outbreak. Therefore, credit granting institutions should be strengthened to render special financial services to poultry farmers at low interest rate in order to enhance the viability and sustainability of the egg production in Oyo state.

Key words: Egg production; poultry farmers; economic analysis; Oyo state