Poultry cum Fish Farming for Sustainable Soil and Water Enrichment and Quality Appraised Pedigree Birds
A. Falayi1 (PhD) and E. A. Adesulu1 (PhD)
1Department of Biological Sciences,
College of Natural and Applied sciences,
Wesley University of Science and Technology,
P.M.B. 507, Ondo. Ondo State, South-west, Nigeria
Correspondence: fabacome@gmail.com
Accepted July 30, 2013
Abstract
African nations are bedeviled by gross shortage of protein food. There are abject malnutrition, hunger and disease manifestations. The incessant war and corruption (on the side of many of our leaders), environmental disasters infiltrated by the general global warming coupled with the large number of unemployed graduates from universities and other tertiary institutions; as well as terrorist menaces are rampart. There are abundant natural land mass and water resources for agriculture and fish culture to sustain our population and rid us of the pending disaster. Our inland water bodies are rich in divers’ fish species of proven quantities and qualities. Indigenous chickens in our localities are reducing in size due to inbreeding and loss of vigour. Integration of Poultry and fish farming will avert the high cost of feed in intensive fish and poultry farming and avoid the competition between man, poultry and fish in same market for food. Nitrogenous manure inputs in ponds clearly influence the pond water productivity as it supplies the planktons with essential nutrients needed for multiplication and growth inform of fertilizer and these life animals and plants are the natural food for baby fishes. Animal manure contains considerable quantities of nutrients that can serve as feed for fish among which are: non-digested feed, metabolic excretory products and residues resulting for microbial synthesis. Our natural waters have been overfished through the use of obnoxious materials for fishing and catches have reduced as well as infiltration and depletion of our biological diversities. The artisanal fisheries cannot cope with the current fish protein needs and fish importation negates on our foreign exchange earnings. An option available to Africa nations is the integration of poultry and fish farming culture thereby, Africa would have invented a system in wish feeding of formulated feed to fish become extravagant and land conservation would be maintained by replenishment by natural means and biodiversity preservation through the use of organic materials. The system is cost saving, synergistic, complementary and efficient in utilization of resources. Cockerels produced are sold to rural farmers at the end of 6 months fish culturing period to improve the existing crops of less prolific inbred birds found in Africa. The paper proposed the methodological advances on integrated farming, basic requirement inputs and major returns in an integrated chicken cockerel cum fish farming enterprise in a cash flow system for period of 5 years.