Poultry Farming

Poultry is a term used for any kind of domesticated bird, captive-raised for its utility, and traditionally the word has been used to refer to wildfowl (Galliformes) and waterfowl (Anseriformes) but not to cagebirds such as songbirds and parrots. Poultry can be defined as domestic fowls, including chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks, raised for the production of meat or eggs and the word is also used for the flesh of these birds used as food.

Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for their products mainly eggs, meat, feathers, feces. These birds are most typically members of the Superorder Gelloanserae (fowl)  especially the order Galliformes (which includes Chickens, Squails and Turkeys.

Poultry also includes other birds that are killed for their meat, such as the young of Pigeons (known as Squabs) but does not include similar wild birds hunted for sport or food and known as game. The word “poultry” comes from the French/Norman word poule, itself derived from the Latin word pullus, which means small animal.

The word “poultry” comes from the Middle English “pultrie”, from Old French pouletrie, from pouletier, poultry dealer, from poulet, pullet. The word “pullet” itself comes from Middle English pulet, from Old French polet, both from Latin pullus, a young fowl, young animal or chicken. The word “fowl” is of Germanic origin (cf. Old English Fugol, German Vogel, Danish Fugl).

The domestication of poultry took place several thousand years ago. This may have originally been as a result of people hatching and rearing young birds from eggs collected from the wild, but later involved keeping the birds permanently in captivity. Domesticated chickens may have been used for cockfighting, at first and quail kept for their songs, but soon it was realized how useful it was having a captive-bred source of food and ornamentation.

Selective breeding for fast growth, egg-laying ability, conformation, plumage and docility took place over the centuries, and modern breeds often look very different from their wild ancestors. Although some birds are still kept in small flocks in extensive systems, most birds available in the market today are reared in intensive commercial enterprises.

Together with pig meat, poultry is one of the two most widely eaten types of meat globally, with over 70% of the meat supply in 2012 between them; poultry provides nutritionally beneficial food containing high-quality protein accompanied by a low proportion of fat. All poultry meat should be properly handled and sufficiently cooked in order to reduce the risk of food poisoning. The Poultry meat is scientifically white meat.

FRADI has trained over 420 families to keep poultry in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Settlement, 29 families in Turkana West and 46 families in Nairobi. The refugee families in Kakuma were having chickens farmed in a traditional way that a family of 14 hens with 1 cock to kept in archaic way that production is of lower quality. Poor knowledge of farming chicken was a big challenge of production, that had to be fixed by educating those farmers to ameliorate the indigenous race to an ameliorated race of both layers and broilers. In the year 2017 the price of an egg went down from 20 Kenya shillings to 10 shillings in Kakuma and 5 shillings in Kalobeyei.

In Kabiria we have trained fourty six families which were under production