POULTRY

POULTRY

All farm birds, such as chicken, turkey, duck, goo~ and guinea fowl, are classified as poultry, though chicke alone constitute as much as 95 per cent of all the poultr kept in the world. The largest egg producers are China an USA.

Some of the famous exotic breeds of fowl are Ne\ Hampshire, Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, Whit Leghorn (lays the most eggs), White and Black Minorca Australorp and Orpington. Most commercial egg farms i: India make use of the 'Astra White', a hybrid of Australoq male and Leghorn female. An Asiatic breed is the Brahma.

DISTRIBUTION IN INDIA The largest number 0 poultry population in India is found in Andhra Pradesl followed by Bihar (including Jharkhand), West Bengal Tamil Nadu and Assam. Domestic fowls in India are usuall) divided into two broad groups: (i) desi or indigenous, anc (ii) imported or exotic.

INDIGENOUS BREEDS They encompass all desi fowl, which do not belong to any pure breed e.g., Naeked Neck, ChittagOllg, Teilis, Punjab, Brown, Chagas, Lolnb, Titre, Busm, Karaknath, Denki, Tellieherry, Kalilhasti, etc.

IMPORTED BREEDS They include such fowls which have been acclimatised in India, e.g., White Leghorn, I~hodl' Island Red, Black MillOera, Plymouth Rock, Light Sussex. NelL' Hampshire, Austra loop, Brown Leghorn, etc.

POULTRY DEVELOPMENT The poultry production in the country has made significant progress over the years. The poultry sector provides direct or indirect employment to over 2 million people. About 25 per cent of the total egg production in the country comes from desi poultry, which is unorganised rural backyard system. A target for achieving production of over 52 billion eggs by 2011­12, at a growth rate of 4.3 per cent has been visualised by the Government of India. Poultry sector, besides emplox­ment generation and subsidiary income increase, provides nutritional security especially to the rural poor. Further, landless labourers derive more than 50 per cent of their income from livestock especially poultry.