An Assessment of Chicken Excreta Management in Poultry Farms in Oyo State, Nigeria

The rapid growth in the poultry industry in Nigeria especially in Oyo State, has led to increased generation of chicken excreta. Unfortunately, there has not been a commensurate increase in the quality of chicken excreta management.There is therefore the need to assess existing methods of chicken excreta management in Oyo State with a view to achieving environmentally-friendly and economically-viable waste management methods. A three-stage sampling procedure was used. Oyo State was purposively selected due to its high concentration of chicken farms. For the same reason, two local government areas were also purposively selected:Afijio and I do. Lastly, based on the number of farms in each local government areas (LGAs) 50 and 70 chicken farms were randomly selected from Afijio and Ido LGAs making a total of 120 farms. Out of the 120 copies of the structured questionnaire administered, 101(84.2%) were retrieved. Data were collected on socio-economic characteristics, types of poultry waste generated and poultry waste disposal methods. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics. Most poultry farmers were male (85.1%) and married (86.4%) with a mean age of 41.0+ 10.8 years while household size was 5.0±1.58.Years of formal education and farming experience were 8±2 years and 8.09±5.87 years respectively .Based on the responses the following chicken waste disposal methods were evaluated:dumping on vacant lands (47%), using as manure (50.7%) and selling (29%). The management methods evaluated in the study area had adverse environmental effects.