Scarcity of day-old chicks crippling productivity – Poultry farmers

The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Lagos State Chapter, says the unavailability of day-old chicks is currently crippling the sector’s productivity.

The PAN Lagos State Chairman, Mr Mojeed Iyiola, lamented the unavailability of day-old chicks in an interview with our correspondent on Thursday in Lagos.

Iyiola described the unavailability of day-old chicks as a great threat to the sector.

“We have a lot of problems facing exporting our local poultry produce outside the country. Our major present in the sector is the difficulty of getting day-old chicks.

“The unavailability of day-old chicks is a big problem to poultry farmers. In fact, we had our monthly meeting yesterday and that was the complaint of most of our members.

“And this problem has given room for all mushroom hatcheries to spring up here and there producing half-baked day-old chicks, which are detrimental to the business itself.

“So, when consider exporting out now, the only reason we may not be able to do that is because of our inability to even access day-old chicks which results in shortfall in our production,” Iyiola said.

He attributed the scarcity to export of day-old chicks by most hatchery companies.

“The reason for this scarcity is because most hatchery companies are exporting their day-old chicks, although they denied it completely.

“In fact, the national body of our association is now interfacing with them. We can’t even get enough day-old chicks, talk more of exporting matured chicken.

“The hatcheries are saying they have limited supply parent stock that we use in breeding the DOC, hence the shortage.

“Their parent stock is usually imported and the licence to import is regulated by the Federal Government is not evenly distributed.

“The licence was given to very few hatcheries who cannot meet even the demand of the immediate need. So, they are just rationing the little parent stock they have.

“The management of the local hatcheries, depends on the importation of the parent stock,” PAN chairman said.

He, however, noted that the government had stepped into the situation.

According to him, negotiations are ongoing to address the issue.

“The government is negotiating with the hatcheries on our behalf to increase day-old chicks production,” he said.

He added that the hatchery industry are liaising with the government to give them more license to import more parent stock to increase production.