The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has called on both Federal and State Governments to encourage big hatcheries to set up modular ones across the country.
President of the association, Mr Ezekiel Ibrahim, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said that such measure would minimise the risk and number of hours of transporting day-old chicks from big hatcheries by road to their destination, especially this period of coronavirus threat.
l am appealing to government to encourage the big hatcheries to establish modular or smaller hatcheries in different location in the country,” he said.
Ibrahim explained that the more one transported day-old chicks, the more the chicks became stressed.
He said long hour of transporting chicks to destinations caused some to die before getting to such destinations or dying few hours after getting there.
“We can reduce the stress and fatality rate of the birds by bringing modular hatcheries to different locations in the country.
“We know that with different wheather conditions of the geographical zones in the country, it is not easy to produce hatchable eggs in all the zones, but we can set up a modular hatchery anywhere.
“In this case, you produce your hatchable eggs at a particular point and swift the eggs to your modular hatchery and hatch them.
“By so doing there will shorter time for the movement of the chicks and this will invariably reduce the stress they undergo when being transported for longer hours to their destinations.
“Since one cannot move day-old chicks around in the country at the moment, government should ensure speedy distribution of the chicks to farmers.
“If not, we are soon going to face serious protein deficiency,” he said.
Ibrahim identified eating healthy as the greatest weapon in containing coronavirus.
He advised that government should mobilise the uptake of available eggs across the country and distriute to the vulnerable groups as a palliatives.
