Are Nigerian chickens more resistant to disease?
Professor Daniel Folorunso Adene, a professor of poultry medicine in his third in the series of lectures delivered in the University of Ibadan, held that the local Nigeria poultry population may not be hardier after all.
In terms of ability to withstand infections and diseases, the professor that there might not be a real difference between the foreign and indigenous breeds.
recent events on avian influenza in the indigenous population of poultry in Nigeria were a confirmation that, “… although there is little or no doubt that [indigenous chickens] are hardier than exotic chickens, the question of their resistance to disease, in the strict biomedical sense, deserves empirical proof.”
According to Adene, the free-roaming chickens, ducks and other domestic birds in the villages are constantly in contact directly and indirectly with wild fauna, including visiting migratory birds, which contaminate and share the fringes of the rural environment with these rural poultry production environments.
He added that the rural poultry production environment deserves a very special attention within a holistic bio-security concept in the management of bird flu epidemic.
Related articles:
Nigeria ‘has no bird flu’
Natural disease resistance potential of free-ranging local chicken
Susceptibility of Nigerian and exotic chickens to infectious disease
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