Agrobiodiversity: A case for preserving and conserving indigenous ecotypes of Nigeria Poultry

SOKEFUN O and FABULE A A Presentation at An International Symposium by the United Nations University, the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 8-10 November, 2001 We examine here the ubiquitous nature of poultry of various types in the developing countries of the world especially Nigeria where there are a plethora of types with production characteristics that have been unrecorded through structured animal production enterprise like we have for the exotics in Nigeria. The indigenous in the next few years would be a term of convenience as several indiscriminate attempts at crossing of the locally available poultry with exotics for improved meat, eggs and production parameters is currently being done without proper records. The local chickens, which are basically non-descriptive types,

vary widely in body size, conformation, plumage colour and other phenotypic characteristics. Teketel (1986), the productivity of indigenous birds which is expressed in terms of egg production, egg size, growth and survivability of chicks under the rural production systems was reported to be very low. This low productivity may be attributed to lack of improved poultry breeds, the presence of predators, the incidence of chicken diseases, poor feeding and management factors (Alemu, 1995; Alemu & Tadelle, 1997). The details presented herein are the outcome of an initial research to: generate information on village based indigenous chicken utilization, management practices, opportunities and challenges; to identify, characterize and describe the phenotypic variation of indigenous chicken populations; to compare and evaluate the growth, egg production, reproductive performances, as well as the rate of survival of indigenous chickens under intensive and extensive management levels. The last next stage of the research would be : to provide preliminary data on the genetic variation of indigenous chicken populations using mtDNA and microsatellite markers;

The terminology used to describe chickens is confusing, as they are referred to as indigenous, native, or local. These are all terms of convenience as the real indigenous is currently found deep in the hinterlands, far away from civilization where several unstructured and undocumented attempts have been made to achieve better production parameters. Oxford Dictionary (1990) these terms are defined as; Indigenous: living naturally in an area; not introduced, Native: belonging by birth to a specific area, country and Local: native inhabitant. Hence, for the purpose of this report it was decided to use the word indigenous and native interchangable for the characterization of chickens. About 99 % of the total chicken population is made up by rural poultry sector indigenous type which is managed under the traditional village poultry production systems. The Nigerian indigenous poultry exhibit high variability of phenotypes which is a reflection of the diverse genotype. Horst, P., 1989. noted that the Nigerian native fowl as reservoir for genomes and major genes with direct and indirect effects on adaptability and their potential for tropical oriented breeding plans and also observed that using microsatellite markers they are most similar to the German Dahlem Red breed an indication of the indiscriminate attempts at cross breeding.

Fig 1: Typical normal feathered Male

Fig 2: Typical normal feathered Female

Fig 3: Typical Frizzle feathered Female

Fig 4: Typical naked necked Male.Naked neck genes results in 40% less feather coverage.

Table 1: Means, Standard Deviation and coefficient of variation of body parameters in the Southern Ecotypes Body Parameters Beak length Sex M F Neck length M F Body length M F Shank length M F Thigh length M F Body weight M Mean 2.90 2.78 9.10 8.67 23.50 23.00 32.00 26.67 18.18 16.12 1.12 SD 0.3 0.47 1.39 1.16 1.90 2.30 1.50 1.58 0.90 1.12 0.15 CV 11.12 11.56 17.90 5.90 7.96 5.39 7.97 11.23 9.19 6.42 20.12

F Wing length M F Toe length M F Breast length M F

0.90 18.42 16.30 6.39 5.58 8.24 7.89

0.19 1.52 1.43 0.59 0.76 6.7 2.20

8.90 8.40 12.28 14.02 12.60 22.9 9.23

Male=120, Female=136, M=Males F=Females SD= Standard deviation, CV= Coefficient of variation

Table 2: Growth rate of pure indigenous chickens and the exotic Age in weeks {weight, g } Genetic resource Ind 1 Ind 2 Ind 3 Normal Naked-neck Frizzle Exotic 22.40 21.56 42.28 Day old 27.45 26.83 29.66 135.1 118.0 112 314 290 282 1 4 8 12 484.72 504.69 557 511 496 499 728.18 20

Table 3: Egg production performance of the Nigerian indigenous chicken ecotypes and exotics Genetic Rearing Resource system Ind 1 Ind 2 Ind 3 scavenging scavenging scavenging Age at 1st egg (days) 135 139 136 Body weight at 1st egg (kg/bird) 1.3 1.07 1.25 Egg weight (g/bird) 37.1

Exotic Ind

cage scavenging

145 169.5

1.47

41.2 34.5

The comparison of the indigenous and the exotic that has gone through several years of selective breeding may be improper as the indigenous is usually a stock still very close to the ancestral stock and unselected usually surviving on a scavenging basis and has proven abilities to survive the vagaries of diseases found in the tropics where they exist. A new set of indices should be developed for assessing the indigenous and structured cross breeding should also be done to harness the good genetic qualities that are inherent in their genome.

References

ALEMU, Y. & TADELLE, D., 1997. The status of poultry research and development in Ethiopia. Research bulletin No. 4, Debre Zeit, Ethiopia. ALEMU, Y., 1995. Poultry production in Ethiopia. Worlds Poult. Sci. 51:197-200. HORST, P., 1989. Native fowl as reservoir for genomes and major genes with direct and indirect effects on adaptability and their potential for tropical oriented breeding plans. Arch. Fur. Guflugelk, 53: 93-101. HORST, P., 1997. Project coordinator. Compendium of results of the EEC-research project, No. TS3-CT92-0091. Final Workshop at M'Bour, Senegal. 12 December 1997, pp: 14-18. NW OSU.C C., OBIOHA, F.C AND GONSON, F (1985). A biometrical study of the Nigeria nature chickens. Nig. Journ. Animal. Proc. 12: 14-16. OLUYEMI, J.A. and V.A. OYENUGA, 1974. Evaluation of the Nigerian Indigenous Fowl. Proceedings of the 1st World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Oct. 7-11, Madrid, Spain, pp: 321-328. SOKEFUN .O and ASHAFA A,. (1997) . The Indigenous Poultry of Nigeria: Productivity in Specific Areas and Genetic Distance Studies. Issues in Family Poultry Research and Development. Proceedings of an International Workshop December 9-13, 1997 at MBour, Senegal, pp 225- 231 TEKETEL, F.,(1986). Studies on the meat production potentials of some local strains of chickens in Ethiopia. Ph.D. Thesis, J. L. University Giessen, Germany.