Crossbreeding native chicken types is one strategy that has attracted poultry farmers to combine traits and qualities to produce a more favorable and resilient breed. This creative strategy deviates from conventional techniques and shows great promise in the pursuit of better results.
Crossbreeding for success
The DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) funded project titled, Community-based Native Chicken highlighted the positive outcomes of crossbreeding native chicken varieties in Zamboanga. Native chickens, known for their resilience and adaptability, form the foundation of many local poultry farms. However, crossbreeding aims to combine the favorable traits of different native breeds to create a more robust and productive lineage.
The positive outcomes shown in Zamboanga demonstrate how well the crossbreeding technique works to improve the performance of native chicken populations. The resulting hybrid chickens have a superior combination of traits that lead to increased overall output in addition to retaining the resilience and adaptability of their native counterparts. This achievement supports the idea that crossbreeding is a useful technique for farmers looking to improve their methods for raising chickens.
In addition, the project's emphasis on community-based projects highlights how cooperative and participatory it is. Through community involvement, it creates a venue for knowledge exchange and gives farmers the ability to directly contribute to the crossbreeding program's success. This strategy produces a beneficial effect that extends beyond the project's local boundaries by encouraging a sense of sustainability and responsibility throughout the community.
Increased growth rate and resilience
The higher growth rates seen in crossbred chickens are one of the noteworthy benefits that have been documented. Researchers have successfully mated chickens with desired qualities, such as uniform shank color and faster maturity to create hybrids that grow more quickly than conventional local breeds. This increases the efficiency of chicken farming operations overall and shortens the time to market.
Furthermore, crossbreeding has shown to improve the quality of meat. Customers find the resulting hybrids more enticing since they frequently have a good balance of meat tenderness, flavor, and general quality. This is an important consideration in a market that is competitive and where customers are becoming more picky about the quality of the goods they buy.
In terms of resilience, native chickens are recognized for their hardiness and capacity for environmental adaptation. The crossbred native chicken has greater resilience to common poultry diseases, lowering the need for antibiotics and other drugs, encouraging a more environmentally friendly and sustainable method of raising chickens.