Why farmers target festive periods to sell layer birds

As a riverine area, for instance, the government and people of Lagos State have decided to stay within the agricultural area that the state enjoys competitive advantage such as fisheries poultry, with little arable farming of vegetables, maize, pineapple, plantain and watermelon.A visit to Erikorodu Poultry Estate in Ikorodu in the state revealed some of […]

As a riverine area, for instance, the government and people of Lagos State have decided to stay within the agricultural area that the state enjoys competitive advantage such as fisheries poultry, with little arable farming of vegetables, maize, pineapple, plantain and watermelon.
A visit to Erikorodu Poultry Estate in Ikorodu in the state revealed some of the hidden things about poultry production, especially what farmers need to know, about rearing layer birds for mass egg production.
The Erikorodo is a large hectare of land, located about five kilometres to the main entrance of Ikorodu town, with major roundabouts connecting different parts of the ancient town and it is one of the extended parts of Ikorodu. The land, according to findings, was acquired by the Lagos State Government and leased to farmers by the Lagos Lands Holding Authority.
Scores of the farms visited in the poultry concentrated Erikorodo estate showed that poultry business now attracts young graduates who were unable to secure salary-based jobs but who now have discovered that rearing layer birds fetches more money for them than they imagined.
A veterinary doctor at Ryss Farms Limited, Dr. Festus Anifalaje said the farm is a layers farm and the main purpose of the birds is to lay eggs.
Sharing his experience on how he rears the birds, he said: “The production keeps coming on and basically what we do is that once we put them in the cage and we give them their food, they are okay. 200 birds will take like a bag of feed everyday and the feed we are giving them are bought from Lagos State Government, it is manufactured under the Lagos State Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), we buy the feeds at subsidised rate of N2, 000 per bag. That is part of the benefits which I know we get from the state government.”
The 14,500 birds at Ryss Farm are still young, producing around 160 crates of eggs per day from about.
One major challenge faced by poultry farmers is hot weather. During this period, the birds developed tendency to contract diseases and the rate of production also diminishes. The reason is that when the environment is too hot, the birds will reduce their intake and their production will drop.
A number of things are, however, done to relief birds at this time such as using ice blocks in their water to make it cool and some vitamins, anti stress or other addictives.
Poultry farming, according to Anifalaje, is capital intensive and highly profitable venture which requires adequate attention and expertise.
He called on farmers to pay attention to the birds because they can stop laying eggs before their spent time if certain things go wrong, if they are having some diseases like coryza, Newcastle disease or avian leucosis. When diseases attack birds, their production can come down drastically.
Meanwhile, a farm attendant at Batnin farm, Benson Agbaje, listed different species of layer birds comprising common Issa brown, bofans nera or nera black and highland which are also brown.
He said: “The Issa brown are very good in terms of production. They are very okay, we also have highland, they are brown as well and the black which are called bofans nera or nera black. They very okay too, they produce very well and their mortality rate is less than of the brown.”