Nutritional Constraintsand Supplementation Practice of Poultry : Review

Abstract

This review paper focuseson feeding practice, trends of supplementary feeding, nutritional constraints and
water sources and watering practice of village chicken in Ethiopia. There is no purposeful feeding of
chickens under the village conditions in Ethiopia and scavenging is almost the only source of diet. From
different research reports or findings, the common existing feed resources are cereal grains (dominantly
maize and sorghum) followed by wheat, rice, worms, insects, grass, vegetables.Village chickens are also
supplemented with different available cereal grains and food leftovers or kitchen wastes and different
parts of vegetables and fruits, leaves of green crops. Almost all of the smallholder farmers or chicken
owners provide supplementary feed indiscriminately to all classes of chicken on bare ground or floor.
Shortage of feed supply and poor nutritional quality, limited skill of feeding system, unaffordable cost of
feed ingredients, indiscriminate feeding of the different age classes of chickens’ together, lack of routine
hygiene management, lack of clean water, water and feed trough are the major constraints of feeding.The
objective of feed supplementation practice is mainly to increase egg yield, meat yield and to minimize
mortality in some cases. River and rain water, tap and bore hall water, locally constructed underground
water, spring, and well water are the major water sources of village chicken.