| dc.description.abstract | The study was conducted to assess the characteristics of commercial chicken production in
Lugazi municipality with a major focus on socio demographic and socio economic
characteristics, production and marketing characteristics, contributions of commercial chicken
production to the livelihoods of farmers and constraints to commercial chicken production. A
total of 54 households from 10 villages were used for the study. The data was collected using a
pre tested structured questionnaire and then analyzed using version 20, SPSS computer package.
Study findings revealed that commercial chicken production in Lugazi municipality was mainly
done on a small scale with broilers being the most reared types of birds. The highest percentage
of the commercial chicken farmers were within the age of 35 to 60 years most of which were
women, married, had attained secondary level of education and stayed in less than 10 Km away
from their places of birth. Majority of commercial chicken farmers obtained information from
their fellow farmers, used personal savings as the main source of capital due to limited access to
credit, and spent much of the revenue from chicken sales on home expenses which implied low
prospects of commercial chicken expansion. Marketing of chicken was mainly through open
markets and chicken roasters with months of April, October, November, December constituting
the highest demand for chicken due to existence of festivals and holidays for school going people
while months of February and March constituted the lowest demand for chicken due to much
poverty among people and existence of religious fasting periods in such months. Commercial
chicken production contributed greatly as a source of income to farmers which confirms that it is
a major source of livelihoods. High and rising cost of inputs was the greatest constraint to
commercial chicken production followed by diseases. It was concluded that there are high
prospects of commercial chicken production expansion in Lugazi municipality provided proper
strategies are developed and effectively implemented such as improving access and affordability
of credit, subsidization of costs of production, regulating of prices, provision of extension
services, formation of farmers associations, and improvement in research. | en_US |
