1Biswanath College of Agriculture, AAU, Biswanath Chariali, Biswanath, Assam, India
2SCS College of Agriculture, AAU, Dhubri, Assam, India
*Corresponding author: R Islam; E-mail: rafiqul.islam@aau.ac.in
Online Published on 19 July, 2023.
A study was conducted to assess the costs and returns of small-scale rearing Kamrupa chicken under different systems of management. A total of 300 straight run day old Kamrupa chicks were reared in deep litter system and were fed with chick mash up to 8 weeks of age. At 9th week, the birds were equally divided into three equal groups and were reared in intensive (T1), semi-intensive (T2) and scavenging (T3) system of management up to the age of 72 weeks. In T1 and T2 groups, the birds were offered commercial feeds ad lib and 50% of their requirement respectively, while in T3 group, no supplemental feeds were offered to the birds. The results indicated that feed costs accounted for 57.49 per cent followed by chick costs (25.12%), labour costs (10.21%), medicine and vaccine costs (4.49%) and miscellaneous costs (2.69%) of the total variable costs during chick phase. During growing and laying phase also, higher feed costs incurred in T1 group followed by T2 and T3 groups. The gross returns up to 72 weeks showed a diminishing trend from T1to T3 groups respectively and corresponding values in T1 and T2 groups were 1.61 and 1.37 times higher than the T3 group respectively. The benefit: cost ratios were calculated as 1.04, 1.45 and 3.87 in T1, T2 and T3 groups respectively. So, small scale Kamrupa chicken farming under scavenging system is more remunerative than intensive and semi-intensive systems.
• The net returns recorded in scavenging system were 11.01 and 1.73 times higher than intensive and semi-intensive systems respectively.
• Scavenging system was more profitable than intensive and semi-intensive systems.
Cost of production, Variable costs, Returns, Kamrupa, Cost: Benefit ratio
