Fulani Ecotype chicken better than others - Unilorin Lecturer

Dr. Folake Sola-Ojo, a lecturer at the Department of Animal Production University of Ilorin, in this interview with Daily Trust, talks about her research on the Fulani ecotype chicken, cross breeding the local and exotic chickens to produce more meat and egg, and other issues on animal production.Excerpts What's the thrust of your research on the Fulani ecotype chicken? Normally, research is borne out of desire and what the researcher is thinking of. When I wrote the proposal about the Fulani ecotype chicken, it was based on past works from researchers. Researchers have made mention of the fact that there are Fulani ecotype chickens and they are bigger than their contemporaries. They said it might be due to availability of more nutrients and protein in the grasses they eat. Professor Job Atteh also mentioned that the Fulani ecotype chickens lay more eggs. He also attributed this to diet, that they have access to gene, to more nutrients. You know the Fulanis don't live in towns, they are nomadic. They move from one place to another and when they find a place - like a secluded area, they start living there. So they normally carry their belongings wherever they are going to including their animals. What motivated you to conduct this research? So, all these put together made me to say ok, let me evaluate this chicken genetically and that was how I started. And before I did that, I had to do a preliminary study and what I did was to compare the Fulani ecotype chickens with the typical Yoruba ecotype chickens. I went to the Fulani settlements at Malete, Oke Ose and Oke Ode along Igbaja. I had to travel on bike because most of their roads are not motorable. I booked for their eggs, I started eggs collection. Then I set the eggs side by side with the Yoruba ecotype chickens. My preliminary study was on the Fulani ecotype chicken and the Yoruba ecotype chicken. I placed them under the same environmental condition but as a genetics, phenotype is as a result of genotype and environment interaction. So if they said that they are better, has anyone compared them with ordinary ecotype chickens like Yoruba ecotype or backyard chickens? That was what I did and the result came out that they actually lay bigger eggs, they have strength and they have higher body weight than the Yoruba ecotype chickens and also more of their eggs are tinted instead of pure white shell. From this finding, I now proceeded into evaluation of the Fulani ecotype chicken. From your findings so far, what is the advantage of the Fulani ecotype over the foreign variety? The Fulani ecotype chickens are just like an indigenous chicken. Indigenous chickens are local chickens and we have the exotic chickens. The major importance is survivability and adaptation to our environment and resistance to prevailing diseases. They survive more, they are hardy in nature. We have a lot of exotic strains in Nigeria and these exotics can produce more eggs, they grow faster. In six weeks, you can get an exotic broiler to table. Maximum of eight weeks, you have two kilograms but you cannot get these local chickens to table in six weeks. But the rate at which diseases will attack the exotic, they can't attack the local chickens like that. So they are more resistant, they are hardy, they consume less feed although they produce less. The major advantage is that they are more adaptable to our environment; they are tough and resistant to prevailing diseases. How do you think the study will improve the country's animal protein requirement? What I actually did was to upgrade the Fulani ecotype chickens. Normally, geneticists don't like cross-breeding. Why most people kick against it is that you are encroaching into the gene reserve of what you have. We have the chicken that is well adapted to our environment, we have the chicken that is hardy; they don't die easily but they are still producing at their own minimum capacity. Now, you are bringing the blood of an exotic, mixing it together, definitely you have made everything 50-50. The offspring's might be as well adapted to the environment as the parents. So the advantage of this one is to have an offspring that would be adapted to our environment that would be resistant to some prevailing diseases; that would be hardy. At the same time produce more eggs and have more meat than the parents which are the Fulanis. We are just like tapping into the resources of the exotic and bringing it into our own local breeds so that we can have like an average production both in resistance to diseases and egg and meat production. That's just what I did.