Starting troubles for poultry farmers

The year 2005-06 began on a discouraging note for poultry farmers as roasting temperatures and rampant gout and raniketh (kokkera) diseases have taken a heavy toll on layers (eggs) and broilers (meat) in coastal Andhra districts.

The average mortality of birds due to infections has been put at 10 per cent, the toll being 40 per cent in extreme cases. The toll due to heat waves has been estimated between 5 and 10 per cent. With no rains in sight, the mortality rate is on the rise.

Layers farmers have so far lost up to 15 per cent of income and their broiler counterparts up to 25 per cent. The paradox is that the broiler rate touches the highest point during summer, which at present is around Rs 42 per bird.

G Bucha Rao, secretary of the Broiler Farmers Cooperative Society, and promoter of a broilers farm with 3 lakh birds, told Business Standard that according to official reports, four lakh birds died till May end due to heat waves. Summer being the peak season for broilers, farmers make a profit of Rs 20 per bird.

In winter from November their profit dips to Rs 5 per bird and the other months fetch an average profit of Rs 10 per bird.

But this summer, Rao said, apart from unrelenting temperatures and diseases, short supply of layers and broilers and sudden spurt in price of a bird from Rs 7-8 to Rs 14 marred farmers' hopes of making reasonable profits.

Hatcheries, which cut down the production of birds during summer months, supplied 10 per cent more birds to north Indian farmers than, leaving south Indian farmers, particularly Andhra farmers, desperately searching for birds. They even hiked the rates and supplied birds a week after payment of cash by farmers.

Normally, poultry birds remain relaxed between 13 and 24 degrees celsius. At above 35 degrees celsius, feed intake in layers and broilers goes down, affecting quality, size and number of eggs in the former case and weight in the latter case.

Farmers should take a number of precautions from increasing space in the poultry sheds to keeping the sheds cool, and to changing feed intake regime.