THE poultry industry has made considerable contribution to food production and plays a vital role in the domestic economy. It has proved to be a profitable business and is a good source of cheap, palatable and nutri tious food protein. Modern poultry farming started in 1963. Earlier, the birds were mostly maintained in the backyard of village houses on large scale, with very little investment by villagers. The return on the birds was too little.

The commercial production of poultry is initially concentrated around large urban centres in Sindh and Punjab, and now is well spread all over the country.

Poultry produced is being developed through two man agement systems i.e. commercial farming and rural poultry farming. The commercial poultry farming sector is a classic example of private sector en terprise with a phenomenal growth of 40 to 50 per cent per annum. This rapid growth was achieved because of the incentives provided by the gov ernment from time to time, like liberal financing and credit, income tax ex emption, duty-free import of grand parent and parent flocks, machinery and poultry farm equipment, in addition to liberal and easy loan facilities from commer cial banks and financial institutions.

The large-scale investment and proper incentives have resulted in the establishment of infrastructure com prising 285 hatcheries with a capac ity to produce 600 million day-old chicks per annum, 141 feed mills with a capacity of producing 4.7 million tons of compound food per annum and 19,154 poultry farms with the ca pacity of producing 100 million broilers.

The present poultry population is estimated at 319 million, out of which 137 million belongs to the rural areas (44 per cent), 160 million broilers (50 per cent), 17 million layers (five per cent) and five million (two per cent) breeding stock annually. These figures speak of the potential to increase pro duction of eggs and poultry meat.

Modern poultry farming has a special importance, because it is an easy and relatively cheap method of raising di etary standard of people. The shortage of animal protein is estimated at 0.93 million tons on the basis of human population of 175 million. The average consumption of animal protein is only 17g as against the recommended daily requirement of 28g. This shortage of protein can well be managed with in crease in production of poultry meat at a reasonable cost.

Some of the important breeds of the world birds such as buff rock, leghorn, light Sussex, Rhodes Island red are also hatched successfully. A laying bird pro duces on an average 250 eggs per year and the average live weight of a broiler is recommended at 1,200 grams (or 1.2kg), at eight weeks of age. On an average 8,000 mil lion eggs and 315,000 tons of poultry meat are produced per annum.

Consumption of poultry feed increases with the age of the birds. It reaches its peak (I35g/bird/day) when the birds attain the age of 25 weeks. Then it starts declining gradually reaching 124g/bird/day at 33 weeks of age. There are also some local breeds, which, are highly productive.

The poultry farms are located mostly around large urban centres in Sindh, Punjab and the NWFP, though

some of them are shifting to the rural areas. A majority of such farmers are generally in and around cities like Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Faisalabad and Quetta.: To increase pro duction, rural poultry farming be en hanced.

Vaccination must be carried out to save birds from contagious diseases. At present, poultry feed is produced by commer cial feed mills as well as by home mixture. There are several feed mills lo cated in different parts of the main cit ies. The ingredi ents required for making poultry feed are broken or coarse grains (wheat, rice, maize, millet, sorghum, barley, dry sea food, dried blood of animals, broken pulses and different vitamins). Poultry feed by its quality and price is the major factor in determining the cost of poultry products and profitability of poultry farm. The feed prices have been constantly increasing due to recent global changes in price structure of cereal and grains and other feed stuff. The poultry industry at present is handicapped on account of high feed cost which has increased to more than 70 per cent of the total cost of pro duction.

Poultry farming is becoming more and more profitable. The income from poultry busi ness starts within eight to nine weeks for broiler and 20 to 22 weeks for layers. A broiler is a young male or female bird under the age of 10 weeks. These are generally fast growing breeds reared and marketed for meat. Depending on feed and good management, broiler matures in eight weeks weighing nearly 2kg to 2.5 kg. It con sumes about 4kg of feed before reaching the age of marketing. A layer of mature age generally lays 250-300 eggs per year. In addition to eggs and meat poultry farming pro vides manure which is of great value for farm. It has been observed that nearly 40 hens or deep litter yields about 1,000 kg of manure per year. Income from layers begins within 8 to 10 weeks and from broil ers 18 to 20 weeks.

But poultry farming is a high risk business. As such, quick disease diagnostic facilities for undertaking prompt remedial measures are essential. Health of birds is of para mount importance. Improvements in housing and equipment can provide a healthy atmosphere for the poultry. However death losses from diseases are still heavy in some commercial farms. Emphasis has been given towards the use of disease-re sistant stock, vaccination against specific diseases and use of antibiotics and drugs in food and drinking wa ter of the birds.

Among diseases common in poultry are roup, colds, bronchitis, coccidiosis, chicken pox, newcastle, pullorum (white diar rhoea). Many diseases can be pre vented by selecting healthy breeding stock; keeping chicks separate from adult stock. By keeping houses clean, ventilated and maintaining at proper temperature, good brood ing practice, i.e. care of chicks during the first week and by providing an adequate diet during such period better results are obtained.

A most common disease named pullorum has practically been eradicated and respi ratory diseases, such as newcastle disease, bronchitis and laryngolracheitis and fowl pox can be con trolled by following a sound vaccination programmes. Another very harmful poultry disease coccidiosis, a protozoan disease attacking both young and adult stocks, can be controlled safely and completely by using various drugs in poultry feed. Leu cosis is also a highly complex poultry disease mani festing itself in paralysis or total dis ability of the birds.

An understanding of the funda mentals of indoor air quality is neces sary for layers. A suitable land is needed to set up the farm with an av erage of 0.5 to one acre (i.e. 4840 square yards). A minimum of 10,000 chickens is needed to fulfil the criteria and it is advised that the bigger the number of chickens reared, the big ger the profit margin. There must be basic infrastructure such as water and electricity and communication system in and around the farm, and the surrounding must be dry. All these pre-requisites will help reduce the chances of possible poultry diseases.