Indigenous Knowledge and Development
Monitor, November 2000 Indigenous Knowledge and Development
Monitor, November 2000
Contents IK Monitor (8-3) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | © copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 2000.
Local poultry management practices in southwest Iran
By: Mansoor Shahvali, Houshang Moinizadeh, Mohammad Amiri Ardekani
This article presents the results of quantitative research in three provinces in the southwest of Iran, aimed at documenting the indigenous poultry management practices of women in rural villages. The findings will be used to adapt rural development strategies to the needs and knowledge of these women.
In the context of the Ministry of Rural Development's focus on the position an economic situation of rural women, a study was recently carried out in the provinces Fars, Kohgiloie and Boyerahma. The aim of the research was to obtain information on one of the most important economic activities of local women: the keeping of poultry. This job is reserved for women, while the men are occupied with work outside the home, such as agricultural activities. This means that rural women have a rich store of knowledge related to the management of poultry. A research team of three people visited the local women in their homes, making use of observation, interviews, and participatory observation to collect information. Two of the three researchers were women, one of them a local, and this had much to do with the women's readiness to share their knowledge. Also, as the women gradually realized that their information was considered useful and was being recorded for later use, they were even more willing to contribute.
Research questions
On the basis of a literature study, three main topics were chosen. The first was
concerned with why people keep poultry. Next, the focus was on the different
breeds being kept. And finally, more detailed information was collected on the
methods of poultry-keeping and such aspects as feeding, hatching, hygiene, the
care of sick animals, and the various uses for poultry products. From a policy
point of view, the most important issue was the choice of breeds. Government
policy favours the introduction and promotion of improved varieties, which are
thought to be better than the traditional ones. Nevertheless, the rural
population has continued to raise indigenous breeds. What was the reasoning
behind this decision and what are the possible implications for future policy?
Reasons for keeping poultry
The first reasons put forward by the women were as follows: poultry provide both
eggs and meat; rural woman have sufficient time and space to care for the
animals; and the practice provides a degree of economic independence. Poultry
also help in the fight against beetles and flies, which transmit disease, while
rural women prefer poultry manure to other types of animal manure and chemical
fertilizers. Moreover, in the case of cocks, they are needed for mating and
hatching-egg production, and for crowing in the morning. This latter aspect is
important in rural areas, where the crowing of a cock signals the break of day.
A cock that is kept for crowing (azan-goftan) must be able to crow three
times before sunrise, and these hours are known as 'first cock', 'second cock'
and 'third cock' respectively.
Breeds
The hens and cocks traditionally kept in rural areas of Iran include both light
breeds (layers) and light/heavy breeds (layers/meat animals). These traditional
breeds need relatively more feed in relation to the quantity of eggs produced (Amin
1982). In the last few years, the Ministry of Rural Development has pursued a
broad policy aimed at the improvement of native breeds and, as part of its
educational programme, has distributed many highly productive laying breeds
throughout rural areas. However, due to a number of difficulties, such as the
lack of coordination in the distribution of the new animals, and the lack of
confidence in their resistance to poultry diseases and their ability to adapt to
new environmental conditions, rural people have preferred to keep to their own
traditional breeds.
Methods of keeping poultry
There are two ways to keep poultry: the open method and the closed method.
Open method
Here the animals are allowed to move freely around the house or farm. The
advantage is that they find their own food (insects and worms), benefit from the
fresh air, get more exercise, and come into contact with various cocks, so
broody hens may come out of broodiness more quickly. Also, there is less
cackling at home, and poultry droppings are deposited at some distance from the
house, which helps keep the house area clean.
Closed method
This method makes it easier to protect the animals (against wild animals, birds,
dangerous insects, outbreaks of disease, and farm equipment left lying around),
and to prevent them from eating seeds at seed-drilling time and crops such as
wheat and barley during harvesting or threshing. There are three main types of
housing, all of which are made from local material and adapted to the number and
type of poultry, as well as to climatic conditions. Their local names are kolah,
korkor, and kahloo (see photo essay). Each type has its own advantages.
For example, when poultry are kept in coops (kolah), it is easier to
collect the eggs, and the hens get used to laying their eggs there. The women
regularly feel the hens to determine how long it will be before the egg is laid
(so-called tokhmna-tokhmi or khaaygay-na khaayagi; see photo). The
hens are prevented from leaving the coop before laying their egg. When the hen
cackles (ghaz-ghaz), this indicates that an egg has been laid and the hen
is then allowed to leave the coop. Moreover, during outbreaks of poultry
diseases the animals can be protected from exposure by keeping them in kolah.
Feeding
In rural Iran, troughs are seldom used to feed poultry. The women or other
family members use a special call, which sounds like 'piou-piou', to gather the
hens and cocks. The feed is then strewn on the ground (see photo). This method
has three advantages over a trough. Those distributing the feed can see to it
that the chicks and any sick or weak animals get enough to eat. Moreover, they
can observe the appearance, behaviour, face colour, consistency of droppings,
and feed consumption of the various animals. And finally, feeding is stopped
when all of them have had enough, so that nothing is wasted or left lying around,
to be spoiled by heat or moisture.
The feed is a mixture of various ingredients containing protein, amino acids, starch, sodium chloride and other important nutrients. The quantity varies according to the time of year (extra feed is given in the colder winter months). The women have found that feeding ground maize helps to produce a deep yellow yolk and good skin colour. It is also common practice to feed chickens pieces of bread dipped in buttermilk (tarid dough) or yoghurt (tarid mast), in boiled water combined with cheese or rinsed yogurt (changal lour), or in soaked dried whey (changal kashk).
After ploughing, the poultry are led to the farm, where they are allowed to feed on terrestrial insects and earthworms, a source of animal protein. This kind of protein contains more of the important amino acids and other nutrients than the protein found in meat or fish meal (Jazaii 1995). The favourable effect of such feeding on weight gain and laying performance has been demonstrated, and scientific studies are already underway aimed at producing earthworms commercially in beds or boxes, as a supplementary source of protein.
When the hens produce shell-less eggs, known as wind eggs (dalameh), the women add rice bran to the feed, while newly hatched chicks are given pelleted ground barley, which is easier to digest; later on, ground wheat and maize are added. In many villages in the research area it is customary to add egg yolk to the ground wheat or barley.
Hatching
In order to ensure that a sufficient number of new hens and cocks are produced,
some eggs must be saved and hatched out. This involves three steps: selecting a
broody hen, finding hatching eggs, and supervising the hatching process.
Selection of a broody hen
Rural women usually select hens that are at the beginning of their broodiness,
have already been used for brooding, were careful sitters the previous hatching,
and are not too small. If necessary, suitable hens are borrowed from a neighbour.
Selection and collection of hatching eggs
Sometimes, rural women also select and collect the required hatching eggs from
neighbours. Eggs should be of medium size and weight, and laid by hens which
have good body formation, weight, feathers, colour, and laying and growth rate,
as well as a short period of broodiness. Large eggs would make it difficult to
put the right number of eggs under the broody hen, while very small eggs result
in low-quality chicks and may produce hens that also lay small eggs. The eggs
should also have a fairly thin shell (known as tanak), and should not be
contaminated with dung or blood. The shells produced by young hens are usually
thicker than those laid by older hens.
Rural women prefer eggs laid in the morning. This preference is supported by Chinese researchers who studied the effect of the time of hatching on the fertility and hatchability rate. Over a period of two years, they collected the eggs from a flock of 200 laying hens every day at 5, 8, and 11 o'clock in the morning and 2 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Their statistical analysis indicates that the fertility and hatchability rate of eggs laid between 5 and 8 in the morning is higher than that of eggs laid between 2 and 5 in the afternoon (Ghaleh-Noei 1997). According to rural women, it is more economical to use eggs laid in the afternoon for cooking.
Supervising the hatching
The hatching period usually consists of the following phases.
Once the chicks have hatched, the women often leave the task of rearing them to one hen and allow the other two or three to come out of broodiness and return to laying eggs. If one of the brood hens dies, the motherless chicks are quickly placed with another brood hen, who will take care of them and see that they are not tormented by the other chicks.
Raising chicks
Since poultry are notoriously difficult to catch, rural women try to teach their
animals to respond in a specific way to certain 'calls'. One of the calls used
to stop poultry and then catch them is 'tep-tep'. If you follow the animal and
keep repeating these words, it will stop. Some people get their poultry so
accustomed to this call that they quickly respond and sit down in a way that
makes them easier to catch. This means that children can also take part in the
raising of poultry. Some of the calls which the women use are quite melodious,
such as the following:
Home remedies
Rural women are familiar with the behaviour of their chickens. For example, they
know that when animals spread their wings, ruffle their feathers, flap their
wings repeatedly, or keep their beaks open, they are having trouble maintaining
their body temperature. When they see these signs, the women begin to sprinkle
water on the floor and walls around the chamber and their own houses, in order
to lower the surrounding temperature.
Another indisposition common among poultry arises when an object becomes stuck in the animal's throat. For example, if family members are careless and fail to gather up their nail cuttings, the chickens may eat them. The main sign of such indisposition is the unusual sound the animal makes, known as gigheh zadan. Rural women then try to give liquid feeds, together with a little butter or grease, so that the object can be swallowed.
Rural women heal infected pimples by making an incision in the pimple or cooking an onion in the ashes of a fire and binding it onto the pimple. They also treat dirty wounds by wrapping some gum from a wild almond tree in a piece of moist cloth, placing it under the hot ash, and then laying it on the wound.
They also treat sores under the wings with baby powder or wood ash. They lubricate the skin with butter or grease before sprinkling on the ash. The butter or grease not only makes the ash adhere to the skin, but also promote the healing of sores.
In the case of broken legs, experienced women wind a piece of cloth or clean cotton around the leg and then tie several thin pieces of wood to it, forming a kind of splint. When the leg heals, the pieces of wood are removed.
Poultry products and by-products
Not only the eggs, but also the meat is a desirable poultry product. The
chickens selected for home consumption are usually old or injured animals, poor
layers and cocks that do not crow. If poultry have gotten into the habit of
eating excrement, rural women will keep them in cages for few days before
slaughtering them. This practice is related to their religious beliefs.#1
When the meat of old poultry is boiled, tea leaves are often placed in a small
cloth bag and added to the pot to tenderise it. If the meat is to be grilled, it
is customary in some regions to use twigs from fig trees instead of metal spits.
These twigs have been found to contain an enzyme called foscin, which helps to
tenderise the meat (Faraji 1992).
Another by-product of poultry is their excrement. Bird excrement has been used in Iran for centuries. As the Russian historian Petrushewsky noted, pigeon dung has traditionally been the most valuable dung used by Iranian farmers. And in Isfahan there were always a great many collecting towers for pigeon dung (Lahsaii-zadeh 1990). Nowadays chicken manure is used only for vegetable gardens.
Soft feathers plucked or cut from the body are another by-product. Exposing them to sunshine for a few days will remove the smell and ensure that they are free of fowl fleas. The feathers are then mixed with leaves and the flowers of some sweet-smelling plant such as rose or carnation, and often sprinkled with rose-water as well. They are then used in pillows.
Conclusion
The aim of the above research was to describe the actual poultry management
techniques used by rural women. It was carried out within the broader context of
the activities of Iran's Ministry of Rural Development aimed at improving the
position and economic conditions of rural women. Although the research in the
provinces of Fars and Kohgiloie and Boyerahma has been completed, a separate
study by the second author is now underway which centres on the effects of a
seasonal lighting programme on the growth and sexual maturity of indigenous
poultry. Future research may be devoted to quantitative data on indigenous
poultry management. The results of such studies will no doubt be useful to the
Ministry for purposes of policy evaluation. In any case, the present study
demonstrates that the knowledge of rural women is a valuable resource, and that
the results of such qualitative research can not only improve their economic
circumstances but also empower women in rural areas.
Mansoor Shahvali, Ph.D.
Assistant professor
Agricultural Extension and Education Department
Agricultural College
Shiraz University
71444 Badjgah - Shiraz
I.R. Iran
Fax: +98-71-28 193
E-mail: mshahval@hafez.shirazu.ac.ir
Houshang Moinizadeh, Ph.D.
Assistant professor
Animal Science Department
Agricultural College
Shiraz University
71444 Badjgah - Shiraz
Islamic Republic of Iran
E-mail: hmoini@hafez.shirazu.ac.ir
Mohammad Amiri Ardekani, M.S.
Agricultural Organization of Yasuj Province
References
Amin, M. (1982) 'Laying hen keeping at home', Tech.-Ext. Bulletin.
Teheran; University of Teheran, College of Agriculture, Department of
Agricultural Education and Extension.
Faraji, R.(1992) The principles of feed keeping. Shiraz University Press.
Ghaleh-Noei, M.-R.(1995) 'The effect of time of lay on fertility and hatchability' (title translated from Iranian), Research & Reconstruction; Scientific research and educational quarterly of Jahad Sazandegi, 1995:26: 194.
Jazaii, J.(1995) 'Production of earthworm protein for animal feed from potato' (title translated from Iranian), Research & Reconstruction; Scientific research and educational quarterly of Jahad Sazandegi, 1995: 26: 147-150.
Lahsaii-Zadeh, A-A. (1990) Social changes in Iranian villages. Shiraz: Navid Shiraz.
Websites that may interest readers of this article.
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