Dr. Keith Hammond
Dr. Kitalyi's lead paper 3 is appreciated.

Now, can contributors take her analysis even further and identify the SPECIFIC opportunities for improving poultry production and productivity FOR EACH of the different system types: Intensive, semi-intensive, backyard and extensive scavenging systems of family or smallholder poultry of Africa. Dr Kitalyi comments: "Improvements in areas of breeding, feeding, housing, health and disease control as well as in marketing and processing of poultry products have been introduced invariably in different countries." This further analysis would be best done by forming a large table, and using either a few descriptive words or scores (suggest ---- to ++++) as entries, depending upon the row title, in the body of the table. Perhaps Dr Kitalyi might start the ball rolling with a draft table - just in an e-mail body. Of course this could be done for each country but perhaps first the general table for African Family and Small-holder Poultry Systems.

So, for EACH OF THE SYSTEM TYPES (columns of the table):
1. What have been the outcomes (even guesstimated!) in terms of family output of chickens, meat, eggs from the experiences to date of implementing these different improvements / for particular combinations (specify) of improvements (rows of the table)?
2. As a further set of rows in the table: What specific opportunities are envisaged now and in the immediate future for each of these different improvements / for particular combinations (specify) of improvements, AND what would be the expected GAIN IN OUTPUT OF CHICKENS, MEAT, EGGS WHICH COULD BE SUSTAINED FROM EACH OF THESE INTERVENTIONS at the small holder / family unit level? What level of added inputs over time would be required to realise and sustain each of these estimated gains, and is this the requirement for this input once-off or repeated (continuing)?
3. Finally, what is the (guesstimated!) current contribution to family income and wellbeing of each system in the urban areas, and in the rural areas?

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Dr. Aichi J. Kitalyi
Coming back to Dr. Keith Hammond's contribution (see Comment 1 on the Lead Paper 3) on the need for more analysis on input-output and opportunities for family poultry improvement, I want us to make reference to Prof. Bessei's proposal. Prof. Bessei discussing international poultry development, gave a step-wise improvement to the poultry sector as follows:

- Traditional production system (negligible input), Step 1 (water, supplementary feeding, improved shelter, preferential treatment of chicks and ND vaccine), Step 2 (Step 1 + more improvement in housing and disease control), Step 3 (Step 2 + complete diet and improved breeds). The estimated output of these levels were:-

See Table

Different output could be estimated in this step-wise improvement approach depending on the production objectives. Where there is more demand for eggs, then bird output can be lower and vice versa.

In 1996 Prof. Bessei brought the same discussion in the XX WPC and included output form the industrial/intensive system as 265 eggs. In his later presentation Prof. Bessei discussed the efficiency of feed energy utilization in the different systems. When environment issues are brought in, then integrated farming is one of the opportunities, which should be captured in the different steps.

On the guess-estimates for current contribution of poultry to family income and well being of the different systems, we can be sure the range will be very wide. Given the current state of art in most rural areas, where the importance of cash economy is increasing daily, need for diversification with the unpredictable weather changes, family poultry has a high potential. Although poultry product utilization is poor, poultry meat is found in the meat kiosks, which are common in most African urban areas and market places in rural areas. Unfortunately, there is no hard data on quantities, but no doubt there will be some contribution to the family income and wellbeing of the people through these channels. Probably, the network could suggest and/or support some studies to quantify this.

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Klim Huttner
Dear Dr. Kitalyi,
Your lead paper 3 is a comprehensive review of the environment and circumstances of traditional village poultry systems. However, having worked for six years as a field veterinarian in northern Malawi, I realised that a number of traditional husbandry methods are perhaps the best possible option of keeping chickens in this environment. Despite many failures in the traditional management of chickens and high mortality rates, scavenging chickens might enjoy a much better balanced diet than chickens in intensive units.

Housing, at least in northern Malawi is simple but efficient, given that the structures are maintained (stilted, grass thatched basket type predominant). I believe that a number of Projects have focused too much on changes of the system rather than improving it. Another aspect mentioned in your paper is insufficient knowledge for instance about scavenging feed recourses. We had the same problem in Malawi. Even estimates about off-takes, hatching rates or causes of deaths were difficult to assess. Because of this and the importance of village chickens for the families we decided to undertake a detailed 15 months study in selected villages where the same flocks were visited daily. The results of this doctorate thesis provide a deep and valuable insight into chicken keeping in villages. Unfortunately, we were not yet able to publish the content.

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Dr. Aichi J. Kitalyi
Dear Klim Huttner,
This is a response to your comments (see Comment 3 on the Lead paper 3). Yes, traditional husbandry methods could be the best option in the village poultry systems. However, you will agree with me there are no static production systems. Therefore, scientists have to come up with appropriate improvement technologies for rural poultry. There have been so many changes in the rural farming systems. For instance, in the past most post harvesting activities (threshing, pounding and milling) were carried out at the homestead vicinity. This allowed for more access of scavenging feed resources to the family poultry. This is no longer the case. Population increase has resulted into people leaving far from the crop fields and post-harvesting processes are carried out by machines, where some of the products go to other more intensive production systems. So change in the family poultry production systems is eminent.

As for the estimation of production parameters, I will refer you to the recent Animal Production and Health Paper No. 142. First, the farmers have to appreciate the need for record keeping, which will have to come with some intensification or transformation to any of the improvement steps suggested in the paper. I hope the Malawi work will be published. It will be interesting to share experiences from Malawi with that reported from The Gambia, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe in that FAO publication.

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Dr. Christine Ahlers
In 1995/96, a longitudinal survey on traditional poultry keeping systems has been carried out in Northern Malawi. During this study, several interventions were carried out to increase the output of the extensive production system. After elaborating the results for a doctorate thesis (Ahlers, C., 1999: úErkrankungen und Produktionsverluste in der traditionellen Huehnerhaltung in Nord-Malawiî, Fachbereich Veterinaermedizin der FU Berlin, Germany), the data are being prepared for publication.

To answer Dr. Hammond´s questions (see comment 1 on the lead paper 3) briefly, I can give a short summary of what we did and found out: 71 traditionally kept chicken flocks with a total of about 900 chickens in 4 villages were visited and examined monthly over a period of one year. Besides questionnaires on flock dynamics and productivity, blood and feacal samples were collected and single birds were checked for ectoparasites. In one of the participating villages, the birds were vaccinated against NDV. In a second village, recommendations on husbandry and management were given regularly, and baskets were promoted for the rearing of young chicks in order to avoid high losses. In the third village, all interventions were combined and chicken flocks in another village served as control group.

The examined production system is an extensive scavenging system as is described for several other African countries. In July 1995, the average flock size was 17 chickens. Although the birds are kept mainly for consumption and sale, 90% of the families had a chicken meal less than once a month. In most cases a chicken was slaughtered for guests. In this situation, the average family size was 5 persons. They shared a cockerel of maybe 1kg live-weight with one or more other persons. Eggs were mainly left for reproduction. Less than 50% of the participating farmers sold a chicken during the survey. The family output of this production system is obviously very little, the losses were about 4 times as high as the off-take.

We compared the output in the different villages and found out that the best results were obtained when all interventions were combined. In that village, on average 2.2 chickens per flock were used (consumed, sold or bartered, given away as a gift) monthly, while the average flock size had increased to 26 birds after one year. In the control group only 1.2 chickens were taken out from each flock monthly, and the average flock consisted of 22 birds after 12 month of survey.

The results of this longitudinal survey revealed the importance of socio-economic aspects in this traditional system of poultry keeping. For example, the popular custom consisting of lending chickens to a relative or good friend can reveal to be devastating in case of disease outbreaks since local farmers have no idea about incubation periods. To overcome such difficulties the socio-cultural context of the targeted production system should be known. Socio-cultural aspects showed an influence on the vaccination campaign as well as on acceptance/adoption of recommendations. The acceptance of labour-intensive or expensive interventions depends on the importance and meaning of chickens to their owners. Therefore, regularly repeated training programs and periodic control through monitoring are necessary to achieve a good acceptance/adoption of any intervention and to establish sustainable improvements.

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