Backyard chicken make smallholders happy
Ms. CHEA NIMOL, 45 years old is a farmer live in Boeung Pralit village, Steung Kach Commune Sala Krao district, Pailin Province, Cambodia. She has two children in her burden, her first daughter is a year-two university student in neighbor province. Her second daughter is studying at high school, grade 11 also in a neighboring province. Nimol raised chicken in traditional practice with lots of challenges from chicken diseases, vaccination and treatment, and the growth of chicken was too slow. Her husband, Mr. CHHAM MAKRA is a first council member of Steung Kach commune. Though he is busy with his work at the communal council office he always spent his off-work times to help making animal feedings.
Ms. CHEA NIMOL is a model farmer and chairwoman of Boeung Pralit Teuk Chenh Moha Samkee Agricultural Cooperative. Nimol becomes a member of backyard chicken raising group under the Acceleration Inclusive Markets for Smallholder (AIMS) in 2018 which facilitated by CFAP Farmer Facilitator (CFAPFF). Raising chicken in traditional practices, she said she always failed and loss money.
After registration as a member of the AIMS’s project with AIMS’s Satellite office in Pailin province, she was selected to have a study visit to successful farmers in Banteaymeanchey province and Siem Reap province to learn of how farmers got success on raising backyard chicken, breeding techniques, choosing of location, preparation of chicken cages, feeding chicken, giving of vaccination to chicken and market planning. Moreover, she also learn of how to use farming dairy book to notice all related information on chicken production. When she came back from the study visits, she started action plan immediately by construction of new chicken cage (3m width x 6m length and 3m. height) and buying of hatching chicken eggs incubator for self-hatching of chicks.
She started raising chicken from 18 chicken (15hens and 3 cocks) in 2018, now she has more than 200 backyard head. She produces animal feedings by herself with little purchases from outside. Once a day, she get all chicken free few hours and back to cages for feeding in the afternoon. She said, her chicken grow faster than before when followed technical protocols.
She said raising chicken is a complementary to other agricultural sector, especially chicken’s manure is used for vegetable production, crops production and rice production without much expense on fertilizer while some vegetables, crops and plants can also use as animal feedings too. She said, backyard chicken sell well on current markets with better prices compared to commercial chicken i.e. 15000 riles to 18000 riels or USD3.75 to USD4.50 per kilogram.
Source: CFAP Cambodia