Sustainable rural development through Backyard Poultry Farming in Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu

Backyard poultry farming has played an important role to meet the domestic as well as socio-cultural needs of the rural people. However, the traditional poultry farming in villages has suffered in the wake of commercialization in the recent years. Thus, the present study was conceptualized with the objective to search out the existing status of backyard poultry farming and to identify the constraints perceived by poultry owners in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, India. The study was conducted in randomly selected fifteen villages of three divisions of Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu. Data were collected through a structured interview schedule from 240 respondents i.e. 80 each from the three divisions. The analysis of data revealed that respondents were predominantly young, had low level of education in backyard chicken production. Agricultural labour was the major occupation; they had marginal land and medium livestock holding with more than six years of poultry farming experience. The average flock size was 5 birds and they reared birds in free-range/backyard system with little supplementary feeding. No systematic care was taken with regard to the diseases and vaccination of the birds was also not carried out in any of the villages surveyed. The major constraints identified were high incidence of poultry diseases, lack of suitable germ-plasm and attack by predators.