1.1. Introduction
The aim of this guide is to promote the development of intensive
poultry farming and related activities in the Western Sahelian area. It follows
on from the first meetings for professionals in the poultry and livestock feed
industries organized by the CDI in Saly-Portudal (Senegal) in November 1993.
Intensive poultry farming is a quick and effective means of
supplying African communities with animal protein of high nutritional quality at
an extremely competitive price.
However, the exchange of views between ACP and EU operators
taking part in these meetings showed that, alongside some very successful
poultry farms, many others were suffering from insufficient mastery of
production parameters. It turned out that the failures in this sector could be
put down to a lack of technical information for farmers, inadequate structuring
of the production phases (inadequacy or lack of hatcheries, abattoirs, egg tray
production), frequently deficient feed quality, precarious husbandry conditions,
lack of training of husbandry staff or inappropriate production tools.
This guide seeks to remedy that situation by providing readers,
whether they be managers of poultry-keeping projects or professional poultry
farmers, with a set of useful and realistic information which will enable them
to avoid the many pitfalls which await them along the way. The CDI is not
presenting a poultry farming manual, but a set of recommendations drawn from
both African and European professionals who have acquired, through experience,
know-how in the field of intensive poultry farming which can be of benefit to
everyone involved in this activity.
In this guide, the reader will find diagrams, advice, a
technological profile of poultry farming from primary production through to
marketing, recommendations for designing a poultry farming project, a hatchery,
an abattoir or even a compound feed production unit, relating in all cases to
small units. It is easier to start on a modest scale than to manage a major
enterprise in which neither production techniques nor management have been fully
mastered, while making plans from the outset for possible future expansion.
The CDI's strategy is to support small, well-structured projects
which have the greatest chance of success because the rigorous design process
means that they are adapted to African socio-economic structural
contingencies.