Modern Poultry Farm

Poultry farming is one of the oldest most common house hold productions both in rural and urban Ethiopia. When higher level agricultural education research and extension were established in Ethiopia in the early 1950’s, poultry production was one of the programs. Jimma Agricultural Technical School, Alemaya College of Agriculture and United State Operational Mission Agricultural were the first institutes dealt with poultry farming projects. Jimma, Alemaya, Debre Zeit and Shashemene were the first four experiment stations. At the beginning, the projects dealt with the appraisal of the country’s indigenous chicken varieties, utility and their productivity. Later, four breeds of exotic chickens, Rhode Island Red, Australorp, New Hampshire and White Leghorns, were imported from Kenya, Denmark and the United States to Jimma and Alemaya. Trials and experimental activities were done in the areas of poultry housing, feeding, brooding, management, and disease and parasite control.

The experimental stations played key roles in the establishment phase of the current modern poultry sector and [in] the national poultry extension. They served as sources of improved verities and fertile eggs along with reliable information about the best methods of housing, feeding, management and marketing of poultry. The activities of the experiment stations were further strengthened with the establishment of modern poultry farms. The modern poultry farms were involved in the distribution of exotic genotype to urban poultry producers. The Ministry of Agriculture established seven more multiplication centers in different parts of the country to enhance the national poultry extension activities.

Comparatively larger scale intensive poultry production is also practiced at government poultry multiplication and distribution centers located in various regions such as Adama, Bedelle, Hawassa, Bonga, Kombolicha, Andessa and Mekele breeding and rearing centers.

The Ethiopian higher education and research institutions run a number of modern poultry farms with the objectives of training and research. The institutions distribute fertile eggs, baby chicks and pullets and cockerels for MoARD, NGOs and individuals. The MoARD operates a total of 14 modern breeding and/ or rearing centers. Some of them have hatchery units, brooder and layers houses, and veterinary clinic and feed processing units. The centers directly import fertile eggs and day-old chicks of dual purpose chickens as a parent stock. Prior to February 2006, the centers suffered from shortage of financial resources, lack of replacement breeding stocks and periodic disease outbreaks.

Currently there are more than 20 private large scale commercial poultry production farms located in and around Addis Ababa, particularly in and around Bishoftu. ELFORA, Alema and Genesis are the top 3 largest commercial poultry farms with modern production and processing facilities in Ethiopia. Established in 1997, ELFORA has large scale poultry farms at 4 different locations and sub-locations. ELFORA has modern broiler processing and packing units. It produces table eggs, broiler meat and day old chicks. The slaughtering service has a capacity of 500,000 kg/year. ELFORA annually delivers around 420,000 chickens and over 34 million eggs to the markets in Addis Ababa. Alema Farm is the second largest enterprise delivering nearly half a million broilers to Addis Ababa market every year. It has its own parent stock from Holland, a feed processing plant, hatchery, slaughtering plant, cold storage and transport facility at its sites of operation. Genesis farm is the third most important private poultry enterprise with over 10,000 layers and its own parent stock and hatchery. Genesis farm is the major source of breeding stock and commercial feed for the modern private poultry sector.

Read each statement carefully and determine whether it is true or false based on the information provided in the text .

1.Poultry farming has been a common practice in both rural and urban Ethiopia since ancient times.

English G-12: Module 1

English G-12: Module 1

Lesson 25 Test: Reading self test questions on Passage 2

Read each statement carefully and determine whether it is true or false based on the information provided in the text .

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