• Poultry can be described as farm birds

cultured to obtain from them eggs, meat and

feathers. Poultry generally can be divided into:
Galliformes - chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl,
partridge
Waterfowl - ducks, geese.
• Hens are the most popular birds in the world
and certainly the most productive pets. In the
Indian jungle there is still alive Bankiva
chickens (Gallus gallus), with the partridge
coat, from which originated the first
domesticated birds.
Broiler: Broiler are young chicken of either sex, which are reared primarily for meat
purposes and marketed at an age of 6-8 weeks

Grower: The management of birds during 9-20 weeks or to the point of laying is referred
to as grower period.
Layer: The management of birds during 21-72 weeks of age for the purpose of laying eggs
(egg production).

Asiatic Class
They are large bodied with heavy bones feathered shanks and poor layers.

Asil (Fighting purpose) Karaknath Bursa

Indigenous Breeds

• The Indian birds are mostly non-descripts, and are of very

little value as layers.
• They have several local breed names such as Tenis, Naked
Neck, Punjab, Brown, Ghagus, Lolab, Kashmir Faberella, Tilri,
Busra, Tellicherry, Danki, Nicorai and Kalahasti. There are only
4 pure breeds Karaknath and the Busra. The last occurs in
western India.
• A large number of fowls of different size, shapes and colours,
and for the most part resembling the jungle fowls, are found
all over India.
• They vary in appearance according to the locality in which
they have been bred. These with Chittagong, Aseel, Langshan
or Brahma blood in them are bigger in size and better in meat
quality than the common fowls.
Aseel
• Asil is noted for its pugnacity, high stamina, majestic gait and dogged
fighting qualities.
• The best specimens of the breed, although rare, and encountered in
parts of Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
• The most popular varieties are peela (golden red), yarkin (black and
red), Nurie 89(white), kagar (black), chitta (black and white silver),
Teekar (brown) and Reza (light red).
• Although poor in productivity, the birds of this breed are well-known
for their meat qualities. Broodiness in most common and the hen is a
good sitter and efficient mother.
• The body is round and short with broad breast straight back and
close - set strong tail root. The plumage has practically no fluff and
the feathers are tough. The tail is small and drooping. The legs are
strong, straight, and set well apart. Standard weight (kg): Cocks, 4 to
5; hen 3 to 4; cockerrels, 3.5 to 4.5; pullets, 2.5 to 3.5.
 Aseel Karaknath
Native breeds of egg
type chicken in India
Body Age at
Annual egg Egg weight
weight sexual Hatchability
Breed production at 40 weeks Fertility
(20 maturity FES (5)
(No.) (g)
weeks) (days)
Aseel 1220 196 92 50 66 63
Frizzle 1005 185 110 53 61 71
Kadaknath 920 180 105 49 55 52
Naked neck 1005 201 99 54 66 71
Karaknath
• The original name of the breed seems to be Kalamasi, meaning a
fowl with black flesh. However, it is popularly known as
Karaknath.
• The eggs are light brown. Most of the internal organs show
intense black colouration. The blood is darker than normal blood.
• The black pigment has been due to deposition of melanin.
• The flesh although repulsive to look at, is delicious.
• A medium layer, lays about 80 eggs per year.
• The bird is resistant to diseases in its natural habitat in free range
but is more susceptible to Mareks disease under intensive
rearing conditions.
 Other commercial breeds of broiler chicken in India

Egg Net egg Livability Egg Feed Egg Net egg

Feed
production Egg weight production producti efficiency weight production
efficiency
peak (72 weeks) on peak (72 weeks)
Grower
17-18
ILI-80 150 days 26-28 weeks (96%) 92% 2.1 54 g 280 eggs
weeks
Layer (94%)
Grower
18-19
Golden-92 155 days 27-29 weeks (96%) 90% 2.2 54 g 265 eggs
weeks
Layer (94%)
Grower
17-18
Priya 150 days 26-28 weeks (96%) 92% 2.1 57 g 290 eggs
weeks
Layer (94%)
Grower
18-19
Sonali 155 days 27-29 weeks (96%) 90% 2.2 54 g 275 eggs
weeks
Layer (94%)
Grower
18-19
Devendra 155 days 27-29 weeks (97%) 90% 2.5 50 g 200 eggs
weeks
Layer (94%)
LEGHORN CHICKEN BREEDS

These are probably the best laying chickens around, besides the
Rhode Island Breeds.
They are prolific egg layers of white eggs. A small, spritely, noisy bird
with great style, that like to move about. Leghorns are good foragers
and can often glean much of their diet from ranging over fields and
barnyards. Leghorns are capable of considerable flight and often roost
in trees if given the opportunity. Leghorns lay more than 300 eggs a
year.

Very flighty
Good foragers
Rarely Broody
LIGHT SUSSEX CHICKEN BREEDS

The Sussex is an attractive little bird and makes a good all-

round farm fowl. It is a good layer of cream eggs. 260-280
eggs per year. So not a bad egg layer.

Best Dual Purpose Bird

Good Foragers
Tend to go Broody
RHODE ISLAND RED CHICKEN BREEDS

The Rhode Island Red Chickens are prolific egg layers of medium
brown eggs. Relatively hardy, they are probably the best egg
layers of the dual purpose breeds. Reds handle marginal diets
and poor housing conditions better than other breeds and still
continue to produce eggs. 200-250 eggs a year.

Dual Purpose Bird

Hardy
Good Choice for Novice Breeder
Gramapriya

• Gramapriya is a crossbred chicken developed by the Indian

Government through a Hyderabad-based project under an All
India Co-ordinated Research Project.
• Gramapriya chickens have been developed for backyard rearing.
They have a high favourability rating among farmers in India.
• The Gramapriya starts laying eggs at an age of 175 days. In 72
weeks a Gramapriya chicken can lay 200–225.
• There are two varieties of Gramapriya:
White variety:- Good egg producer
Coloured variety:- Dual purpose. Egg number is less than white
variety->Promising features of Gramapriya are: =>Multi color
feather pattern. =>Longer shanks. =>Lower predator threat.
=>Moderate in body weight. =>Better egg production. =>Produce
brown shell eggs.
Eggs of the Gramapriya chicken is of medium size, weighting around
55-60 grams.
They gain body weight between 1.2 and 1.5 kg within their 12 weeks
of age.
Poultry breeding technology
Broiler breeding
Broilers are the most preferred ones under poultry meat category. Many
Private companies are involved with farmers in contract farming for
boiler production. So marketing is no longer a problem. A broiler is a
young chicken of below eight weeks of age, weighing 1.5 to 2 kgs body
weight, with tender and soft meat.
• The birds are kept from one day-old till they reach the slaughter
weight. Premises (buildings) are mostly without a fowl-run and are
heated with double ventilation system - normal and emergency.
• Due to existing climate it should be predicted that in addition to the
indoor heat there will be a need to use heat cooling during warm
periods.
• Birds should also be ensured proper microclimate through adequate
air exchange, optimal temperature, light intensity, and undesirable
noise attenuation.
• For early disinfected, dried and heated rooms day-old chicks are
imported. Birds from the beginning of their stay must have
permanent access to water and feed.
• Length - the time of breeding depends on the target weight of
birds agreed with the customer. In the final period of fattening
the concentration of birds must not exceed 43 kg/m2.
• Stocking density is one of the critical factors affecting the
development of the birds, their health, carcass quality, and most
importantly for their well-being. Therefore, in addition to the
appropriate temperature conditions and humidity a breeder
must abide warnings on stocking.

Environmental requirements
• In the room where we keep broilers it is necessary to provide the
exchange of air - in the winter, when the outdoor temperature is
-20°C it should be 0.6 m3/h/kg, and at +30°C in the summer
outside, up to 6.0 m3 /h/kg. Ensuring the exchange of air in the
house it is necessary to avoid aerations and the maximum
permissible air flow in the occupied zone of broilers - winter -
0.1-0.3 m/s, while in summer - up to 1.0 m/ s.
Laying hens - maintenance in flooring systems
Birds in this system stay in buildings with no fowl-runs. Floor areas
are covered with litter. Chicken coop is inhabited by 16-18 weeks old
hens. They stay there until the end of lay period. Density of birds per
1 m2 cannot exceed 9 hens.
The lighting in a building can be natural or artificial. Birds should
have the opportunity to find food and water and prevent
cannibalism. Environmental conditions in the room for layers are as
follows:
- Temperature in the range of 13 to 16°C;
- Relative humidity of 65% (ranging from 55 to 75%);
- Exchange of air between 0.5 (winter) to 6.0 m3/h/kg (summer);
- Flow velocity of 0.3 m/s (winter) to 1.0 m/s (summer), - permissible
gas concentration: NH3 - 0.0026% (0.02 mg / l), CO2 - 0.20 % (4 mg /
l), H2S - 0.0005% (0.008 mg / l);
- Artificial lighting, adjustable from 0 - 30 lux.
How to Keep Egg Production High
Just because you have a breed who can lay lots of eggs, doesn’t
mean they will lay lots of eggs. Many things can affect how
many eggs a chicken lays. Their diet, age and access to daylight
are all important.
Age
Older chickens just don’t lay as many eggs as younger chickens.
A chicken’s first year of laying eggs is always their best.
Chickens Egg Laying Reduce Over Time. Once a chicken hits the
age of three the amount of eggs they lay really slows down.
If the chicken laid 250 eggs in their first year, then by the third
year it will only lay 160 eggs.

Diet
Chickens need around 20 grams of protein every day for them to
keep laying eggs. If their diet isn’t providing them with this protein
then they won’t be able to lay many eggs.
To ensure that the chickens are getting plenty of protein make
sure you are feeding them layers pellets.
Layers pellets have been manufactured to contain all the key
minerals, nutrients and minerals that hens require.
Daylight

• In addition to a good diet, chickens need at least 14 hours of

daylight to lay eggs. If they don’t get this amount of daylight their
egg laying will be limited.
• To ensure they get this amount of daylight make sure you are
letting them out as close to the sun rise as possible- even if it
means those early morning starts!
• During the winter there won’t be 14 hours of daylight and many
chicken farmers will use artificial lighting to keep their chickens
laying eggs.
• If you are forcing your chickens to lay by using artificial lighting it
means their bodies don’t recover and your hen’s health will
progressively get worse.
STRATEGIES FOR BREED IMPROVEMENT
The following two rules should be incorporated into breeding
strategies:
• Germplasm in traditional conditions should not be modified until
management and housing have been improved and, even then,
selection should be restricted to local breeds.
• When technical conditions are optimum and a ready market exists
for the products, then improved breeds, crosses and hybrid strains
that have been selected for high performance can be introduced
into the peri-urban system, even at small-scale levels.

The most common method of improving the local gene pool is crossing
indigenous and exotic birds, and then leaving the hybrid offspring to
natural selection.

Pure-bred or hybrid cockerels (or pullets) selected for greater meat or

egg production are introduced into local flocks, usually in order to
increase egg production.
It is important to note that improved growth (for meat production)
and high egg production are genetically incompatible in the same
bird. The genetic traits are negatively correlated, which means that
selection for one trait will reduce the other.

Cockerel or pullet exchange

An example of this type of strategy is a flock of indigenous local
hens laying 50 eggs a year and beginning to lay at 25 weeks of age,
crossed with “improved breed” cockerels, which have a genetic
breed potential of 250 eggs a year, with hens beginning to lay at
21 weeks. The results are cross-bred hybrid pullets beginning to lay
at 24 weeks, with a genetic potential of laying 200 eggs per year.
The first generation hybrid cross-breed has a higher theoretical
genetic potential (genotype) than the average (150) of the two
parent breeds, due to the effect of hybrid vigour. However, unless
management (especially in the area of nutrition) is improved, this
genetic potential will not be realized by the hybrid cross-breed in
actual practice in the environment.
Replacement of all indigenous breeds

It has consistently been found that entire flock replacement

programmes lead to increased egg and meat production, but
only where management supplies good nutrition and veterinary
hygiene.

There is, however, one great disadvantage, in that the use of

commercial hybrids to increase egg production necessarily
eliminates broodiness of hens, due to the negative genetic
correlation between these two factors. For this reason,
complete replacement of local birds should not be considered
unless a reliable local supply of day-old chicks (of an appropriate
breed) is available.
Selection within local breeds

Production traits of local breeds

The genetic development of local breeds and varieties in
developing countries first requires proper documentation of their
productive and reproductive performance. The main production
characteristics of local breeds are:
• small body size (low nutritional maintenance requirement);
• lateness in maturing (up to 36 weeks of age);
• low performance in egg numbers (20 to 50) and egg size (25 to
45 g);
• small clutch sizes (two to ten eggs); and
• long pauses between laying of clutches and a predominant
inclination to broodiness.
• For rural smallholder extensive systems, meat production
cannot be separated from egg or chick production, and thus
a highly broody (with consequent low egg production), low
body-weight (low-feed requirement) bird is best for survival
under these conditions.
• Surplus cockerels, whatever they weigh, are usually sold for
meat when they reach sexual maturity at three to four
months of age.
• Under rural smallholder extensive systems, there is little
reproductive control of the hens, as they brood their own
chicks for continuous regeneration of the flock. The egg
brooding (incubation) and chick rearing activity increases the
reproductive cycle length by 58 days to about 74 days in
total:
16 days for egg laying and clutch formation + 21 days for
hatching + 37 days (5.3 weeks) for chick rearing = 74 days
Selection programmes for local breeds
• Although improvement of local poultry breeds would be
beneficial, it is essential to evaluate breeds and their crosses
before undertaking a breeding strategy.

• Selection for dual-purpose characteristics within individual local

populations is both time-consuming and costly. Cross-breeding
with improved breeds is recommended, followed by selection in
the composite population.

• Although consumer preference in most developing countries is

for dual-purpose breeds, it is important to restate that in the
same bird, the traits of increased egg production and increased
broodiness are genetically incompatible, as are the traits of high
egg production and high meat production. Selection for any trait
within these pairs will reduce the other trait of that pair.