Agrobiodiversity

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Agrobiodiversity: A case for preserving and conserving indigenous

ecotypes of Nigeria Poultry

SOKEFUN O and FABULE A

A Presentation at An International Symposium by the United Nations University, the

International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and the Secretariat of the

Convention on Biological Diversity. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 8-10 November,

2001

We examine here the ubiquitous nature of poultry of various types in the developing

countries of the world especially Nigeria where there are a plethora of types with

production characteristics that have been unrecorded through structured animal

production enterprise like we have for the exotics in Nigeria.

The indigenous in the next few years would be a term of convenience as several

indiscriminate attempts at crossing of the locally available poultry with exotics for

improved meat, eggs and production parameters is currently being done without

proper records.The local chickens, which are basically non-descriptive types,

vary widely in body size, conformation, plumage colour and other phenotypic

characteristics. Teketel (1986), the productivity of indigenous birds which is

expressed in terms of egg production, egg size, growth and survivability of

chicks under the rural production systems was reported to be very low. This

low productivity may be attributed to lack of improved poultry breeds, the

presence of predators, the incidence of chicken diseases, poor feeding and

management factors (Alemu, 1995; Alemu & Tadelle, 1997).

The details presented herein are the outcome of an initial research to:

generate information on village based indigenous chicken utilization,management practices, opportunities and challenges; to identify, characterize and describe the phenotypic variation ofindigenous chickenpopulations; to compare and evaluate the growth, egg production, reproductiveperformances, as wellas the rate of survival of indigenous chickens under intensive and extensive

managementlevels.

The last next stage of the research would be : to provide preliminary data on the genetic variation of indigenous chickenpopulationsusing mtDNA and microsatellite markers;


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The terminology used to describe chickens is confusing, as they are referredto as indigenous,native, or local. These are all terms of convenience as the realindigenous is currently found deep in the hinterlands, far away fromcivilization where several unstructured and undocumented attempts have

been made to achieve better production parameters.Oxford Dictionary (1990) these terms are defined as; Indigenous: livingnaturally in an area; not introduced, Native: belonging by birth to a specificarea, country and Local: native inhabitant. Hence, for the purpose of thisreport it was decided to use the word indigenous and nativeinterchangable for the characterization of chickens.About 99 % of the total chicken population is made up by rural poultry sectorindigenous type which is managed under the traditional village poultryproduction systems. The Nigerian indigenous poultry exhibit high variabilityof phenotypes which is a reflection of the diverse genotype.Horst, P., 1989. noted that the Nigerian native fowl as reservoir for genomes

and major genes with direct and indirect effects on adaptability and theirpotential for tropical oriented breeding plans and also observed that usingmicrosatellite markers they are most similar to the German Dahlem Redbreed an indication of the indiscriminate attempts at cross breeding.

Fig 1: Typical normal feathered Male Fig 2: Typical normal feathered Female


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Fig 3: Typical Frizzle feathered Female Fig 4: Typical naked necked Male.Naked neckgenes results in 40% less feather coverage.

Table 1: Means, Standard Deviation and coefficient of variation of body parameters in the SouthernEcotypes

Body Parameters Sex Mean SD CV

Beak length M 2.90 0.3 11.12

F 2.78 0.47 11.56

Neck length M 9.10 1.39 17.90

F 8.67 1.16 5.90

Body length M 23.50 1.90 7.96

F 23.00 2.30 5.39

Shank length M 32.00 1.50 7.97

F 26.67 1.58 11.23

Thigh length M 18.18 0.90 9.19

F 16.12 1.12 6.42

Body weight M 1.12 0.15 20.12


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F 0.90 0.19 8.90

Wing length M 18.42 1.52 8.40

F 16.30 1.43 12.28

Toe length M 6.39 0.59 14.02

F 5.58 0.76 12.60

Breast length M 8.24 6.7 22.9

F 7.89 2.20 9.23

Male=120, Female=136, M=Males F=Females SD= Standard deviation, CV= Coefficient ofvariation

Table 2: Growth rate of pure indigenous chickens and the exotic

Age in weeks {weight, g }

Genetic resource Day old 1 4 8 12 20

Ind 1 27.45 484.72

Ind 2 26.83 504.69

Ind 3 29.66 557

Normal 135.1 314 511

Naked-neck 22.40 118.0 290 496

Frizzle 21.56 112 282 499

Exotic 42.28 728.18

Table 3: Egg production performance of the Nigerian indigenous chicken ecotypes and exotics

Age at Body weight Egg

Genetic Rearing 1st

egg at 1st

egg weightResource system (days) (kg/bird) (g/bird)

Ind 1 scavenging 135 1.3 37.1

Ind 2 scavenging 139 1.07

Ind 3 scavenging 136 1.25


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Exotic cage 145 1.47 41.2

Ind scavenging 169.5 34.5

The comparison of the indigenous and the exotic that has gone through several years of selectivebreeding may be improper as the indigenous is usually a stock still very close to the ancestral stock andunselected usually surviving on a scavenging basis and has proven abilities to survive the vagaries ofdiseases found in the tropics where they exist. A new set of indices should be developed for assessingthe indigenous and structured cross breeding should also be done to harness the good genetic qualitiesthat are inherent in their genome.

References

ALEMU, Y. & TADELLE, D., 1997. The status of poultry research and development in

Ethiopia. Research bulletin No. 4, Debre Zeit, Ethiopia.

ALEMU, Y., 1995. Poultry production in Ethiopia. Worlds Poult. Sci. 51:197-200.

HORST, P., 1989. Native fowl as reservoir for genomes and major genes with direct and indirect

effects on adaptability and their potential for tropical oriented breeding plans. Arch. Fur.

Guflugelk, 53: 93-101.

HORST, P., 1997. Project coordinator. Compendium of results of the EEC-research project, No.

TS3-CT92-0091. Final Workshop at M'Bour, Senegal. 12 December 1997, pp: 14-18.

NW OSU.C C., OBIOHA, F.C AND GONSON, F (1985). A biometrical study of the Nigeria

nature chickens. Nig. Journ. Animal. Proc. 12: 14-16.

OLUYEMI, J.A. and V.A. OYENUGA, 1974. Evaluation of the Nigerian Indigenous Fowl.

Proceedings of the 1st World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Oct. 7-11,

Madrid, Spain, pp: 321-328.

SOKEFUN .O and ASHAFA A,. (1997) . The Indigenous Poultry of Nigeria: Productivity in

Specific Areas and Genetic Distance Studies. Issues in Family Poultry Research and

Development. Proceedings of an International Workshop December 9-13, 1997 at MBour,Senegal, pp 225- 231

TEKETEL, F.,(1986). Studies on the meat production potentials of some local strains ofchickens in Ethiopia. Ph.D. Thesis, J. L. University Giessen, Germany.


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