Tanzania Now Strives To Introduce National Indigenous Chicken Breed

LIVESTOCK researchers are joining efforts and expertise in breeding research work to improve and officiate the Tanzania’s best indigenous chicken breed, “The National Legacy Breed”.

With the Horasi indigenous chicken breed picked as the central focus of the research, the “Horasi Breeding Programme” is being implemented by researchers from the Tanzania Livestock Research Institute (TALIRI) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), under the financial auspices of the Sustainable Animal and Aquatic Food (SAAF), a science program under ILRI and the government of Tanzania through TALIRI.

Through artificial insemination and controlled breeding, Horasi chickens are being selectively improved to ensure accurate pedigree records, maintain genetic information and enable researchers to systematically track the performance of each generation.

Detailing the game-changing programme in the sector, Mr Adolf Jeremia, the Research Coordinator from ILRI, said the improvement of the indigenous Horasi breed targets enabling the improved chicken to attain a market weight of at least 1,500 grammes within 16 weeks, with an egg-production capacity of between 200 and 240 eggs a year.

Currently, unimproved  indigenous chickens generally a reach market weight of between 1.2 and 1.5 kg at six o eight months, while egg production stands at approximately 35 and 45 eggs annually.

“The focus under this intervention is to commercialise Tanzania’s poultry sector through an indigenous chicken breed, the development which will unlock the potential and vast economic opportunities for a larger number of households to venture into the sector for alleviating poverty,” he said.

He noted that the project had decided to choose Horasi over other indigenous ecotypes because of the pot retail (big bodies, long necks and legs, disease tolerance and scavenging ability), the breed originates from lake Victoria zone among Sukuma tribe.

To ensure the final breed produced reaches poultry farmers widely, he said plans are afoot to involve private-sector players.

“We’re expecting to convene a co-designed workshop with potential players in the sector to deliberate on the best strategies to help disseminate this new improved indigenous chicken breed across the country,” Jeremia unveiled.

Adding his voice pertaining to the project, Dr Fadhili Guni, the Horasi Breeding Programme Country Principal Investigator from TALIRI, said the project’s preliminary research was conducted with the support of Tropical Poultry Genetic Solutions (TPGS) a successor project of SAAF.

“The project commenced with the collection of the foundation stock (eggs) from villages in lake Victoria zone, followed by the characterization of the produced indigenous chicks during the development of the first generation of the improved Horasi breed” he detailed.

He added that the six-year project is currently hatching improved chicken chicks under the second generation, saying the exercise will run to the sixth generation to reach its peak stage of obtaining the breed needed and will be ready for commercialization.

In general, the Horasi Breeding Programme aims to boost income for poultry farmers in Tanzania through the sale of chicken white meat and eggs, a development which will automatically improve food and nutrition security in the country.