Some poultry farmers have lamented the scarcity of day-old chicks required for rearing, a situation they blame on the COVID-19 lockdown period.
The farmers made the complaints in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday.
They said that the scarcity of the day-old chicks in local hatcheries was largely related to the COVID-19 lockdown because the hatcheries were forced to cut down production.
Mr Emmanuel Iregbeyen, a Poultry Farmer in Ojo, Lagos, said local farmers currently found it difficult to purchase layer birds because of the scarcity.
“In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of hatcheries had cause to cut down on their stock because of low patronage.
“Presently the farmers are on the receiving end because there is a scarcity of layer birds. The farmers want to book birds for rearing but these birds are not available for sale.
“So the price is now very high. The implication is that we may witness a medium to mild scarcity of poultry birds during the festive period.
“There will be birds for sale at the yuletide season but I only anticipate a little hike in prices which is common to almost everything we are doing in Nigeria now because of the pandemic,” Iregbeyen said.
On his part, Mr Joel Oduware, a Chicken Processor, said that the scarcity had grossly affected business turnover and might likely spill over to the yuletide festivities if not corrected.
“We are currently facing the problem of scarcity of day-old chicks. This is situation is caused by the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown period.
“We are currently short in stock for locally-processed chickens because there is a shortfall in the supply of live birds for processing,” Oduware said.
According to him, it is either the prices of live birds are going up or they are not available at all for purchase by local processors.
“It is not that we cannot meet up local production of chickens but we are currently experiencing a shortfall in the production cycle which might linger past July or August.
“Even the stock for Christmas celebration not guaranteed because of this shortfall and will also cause an increase in cost,” he said.
