Another of Yolanda's aftermath is the
sudden disappearance of a table essential: the ubiquitous egg that's
good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. And when they appeared, they
have become expensive and unaffordable to the lower consuming class.
This problem however is an opportunity
for those with a small space especially with a small area that can
produce enough grass for forage. You can then raise a few heads of
chickens for its meat or if you have the right breed, for eggs. If
you have a small space in your front or backyard and are also engaged
in small gardening where you raise plants for aesthetics or for food,
chickens are an essential part of your system. Their manure is the
most ideal organic fertilizer you need.
Breeds to raise:
Depending on your interest, you can
choose from the many breeds available. If you have an interest for
game fowls whose offsprings you can fight or sell to cockfighters,
they are most ideal in the Ilonggo setting where cockfights are
popular event and many earn from raising a few heads right in the
yard. For decades now, Iloilo and negros are known as the game fowl
center of the country where people go to buy quality game fowls, even
those raised by small breeders and backyard raisers who breed to sell
at a lower price.
Many of the residents of Villa Arevalo
and the municipality of Oton engage in small scale game chicken
raising for livelihood. While the stags or the cockerels are sold,
the extra pullets and the eggs often go to the household pot o
nourish the ever demanding nutritional requirements of the children
in the family. It is said that in Iloilo, it is more profitable to
raise game chickens than pigs. Yolanda had wreaked havoc on the
gamefowl industry of Western Visayas while other typhoons have
destroyed thousands of roosters in Luzon to the point that the demand
for cocks and stags have practically doubled.
For dual purpose breeds, meaning, for
eggs and meat, there are foreign breeds which were once imported by
private individuals and by government but a few had remained mainly
due to acclimatization problems. There also exotic breeds like the
Egyptian, Kabir, Sasso and other but they suffered the same fate.
Local breeds or the native chickens have endured several centuries
of culture as they are part of the home or farm system. They subsist
on feeds that they can forage and from table scraps thrown to them.
But their basic weaknesses are that they are slow growers and become
broody after only about 8 eggs laid.
Lately, there had been renewed
attention of oriental chickens, particularly, the aseel or popularly
called jolo. Jolo breeds are often used for naked heel fighting or
locally known as “pauwak” where roosters are fought for one hour
30 minutes and those that are still standing up and pecking, win.
However, the merits of the jolo breed goes beyond its prowess to
withstand beating for one hour and a half. These are extra large
chickens where the cocks weigh between 2 to 4 kilograms while the
hens weigh from 1.5 to 2 kilograms. They are foragers and can subsist
on limited and poor feed availability. Given a free range, they can
scrounge around eating almost anything edible, from fresh tender
nutrient rich plants, to worms and insects which are sources of
proteins and amino acids for them.
They are also fast growers where at 50
to 60 days old, they can be slaughtered and would yield about 1
kilogram of meat. Their biggest asset however is their hens'
capability to sit and hatch well. They are also good mothers and are
fiercely protective of their brood. However, when hungry, they will
also kill and eat their own hatchlings. Like native chickens however,
they become broody or stop laying eggs and start to sit on their eggs
when they have laid about 12 eggs.
Like all breeds, the farmer should
strive to improve the jolo breed continuously. If he wants to improve
it for egg laying, he can identify good layers in the flock and breed
them to white leghorn males who are often passed in the streets as
excess broiler chickens. White leghorns are known to lay as much as
320 eggs per year and in one spurt, they can lay up to 50 eggs before
stopping for a few days then backl again. (to be continued)