Abstract

Climate variation is posing a threat to livestock production, especially the poultry enterprise. This study examined perceived effects of climate variation on poultry production in Oke Ogun area of Oyo State. One hundred and eighty poultry farmers were sampled for this study. Data were collected with interview schedule, described with frequencies and percentages, and analysed with chi-square. Result shows that 81.7% of the poultry farmers were male, 73.3% were married, and 8.3% had tertiary education. Most of the poultry farmers were aware of high temperature, change in rainfall pattern and intensity, loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation. Radio, friends, and family were their main sources of information on climate variation. Some of the effects of climate variation on poultry production were increase in feed intake of birds, outbreak of pests and diseases, and decrease in poultry products. Changes in feed formulation, use of well ventilated housing system and provision of more water ad-libitum were some of the measures taken to control these effects. It is concluded that the more the education and income of poultry farmers, the higher the measures used in controlling the effects of climate variation. Poultry farmers should be well informed on the best practices to reduce the adverse effect of climate variation on poultry enterprise to ensure continual production in changing times.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.