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Poultry Farming: Women SHGs of Murshidabad set an example

Murshidabad:  Women groups of Murshidabad District of West Bengal have done a remarkable job by involving themselves in rearing of poultry and duck. As it is known that the importance of backyard poultry production is deemed to have overcome the never-ending problems of poverty, hunger and malnutrition in the country!

In Murshidabad, the poultry production output corresponds to the backyard poultry production, because people prefer poultry units of small size i.e. 10 to 20 birds each rather than bigger units. These backyard units are becoming popular as it provides supplementary income as well as nutrition of high order without incurring extra expenditure.

In the District, the backyard poultry is regarded as an “ATM”, because of the ease of selling the birds and the eggs at anytime, anywhere with cash in hands. The activity has further been made successful with the availability of good quality chicks or ducklings.

Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Murshidabad, West Bengal proved to be a real helping hand as they came up with the installation of incubators approved by the Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) that helped in fast hatching of eggs and increasing the production. This, in turn, helped the Women Self Help Groups to increase the production and become self-reliant.

The KVK installed three incubators that are capable to meet the farmer’s demand for supplying of day old colored strain dual purpose chicks and ducklings. One incubator in KVK campus and other two in two separate villages (Sahapur dighidanga under Sagardighi block and  Balarampur under Bhagwangola-1 block) among the women members of SHG’s.

These low cost poultry incubators has a capacity of hatching 500 eggs/cycle. The incubators, developed by the KVK, are connected to LPG gas cylinder for maintaining the inside temperature and an inverter that maintains the inside humidity during the power cuts.  Hatchability percentage of the incubators are 67 – 73%. The farmers purchased the hatchable duck or poultry eggs and incubate them in low cost hatchery.

The community members rear the ducklings or chicks up to a period of 25-28 days in the brooding units available in their respective villages and maintain the vaccination schedule. After the period, when the birds attain the body weight of around 150-200 g, the members sell them off to the respective Block Livestock Development Officer, ARD as per the demand @ Rs. 40-45/- per birds or to the local cycle vendors @ Rs. 38/- per birds. In the process, the members earn up to approx. Rs. 4,800 – 5,000/- as the net profit from one batch within 40-45 days.

 

Cost of hatchable RIR eggs Rs 12/pc 500nos X 12 = Rs 6000/-
Expenditure for electricity and LPG gas Rs 700/ cycle Rs 700/-
Labour Family labour
Cost of feed for 350 chicks upto 30 days Rs 26/kg Rs 850/-
TOTAL EXPENDITURE Rs 7550/
TOTAL INCOME (Sale of birds: 70% hatchability & 5% mortality) Rs 38 X 325 nos Rs 12350/
NET PROFIT/ batch Rs (12350-7550) = 4800/-

In order to make the women groups aware about the operation of the incubator, KVK provided community training programme with a visit to Poultry Incubator-cum-Mother Unit Farm.

Applauding the efforts of the Women Self Help Groups, the State Department has come up to provide the marketing opportunities to these women.

 

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