Recap training in poultry diseases

A story of success does not mean it did not go through some difficulties!

During my first month in Shianda as an EU Aid Volunteer in charge of advising smallholder farmers, I have been visiting 14 community groups to conduct a needs assessment on how their activities are going.

I have been the first EUAV to hold this position since the COVID pandemic outbreak, and I wanted to see if the poultry project was still working after two years. The great majority of the groups are still keeping chickens, and they sell their eggs or newborn chicks. They told me they use the money they get from this activity to buy stationery for children, or they put it into an “emergency fund” which can financially help members when they are facing unexpected expenses, such as funerals or hospital fees.

However, there were also some complaints about the health condition of the chickens. Despite training in poultry diseases and vaccination at the time when the chickens were given to the groups by WEFOCO and Mondo, the groups are still witnessing the sudden death of young chicks.

Together with the chair ladies and chairmen, we decided to go through training on poultry diseases for a second time. The participants were very interested, and they also took the opportunity to share their own experiences regarding the treatment of diseases, or the keeping of poultry in their houses.

Our objective is to see the number of chickens increasing in the future. We have a baseline on the number of chickens that are currently kept by a group, starting from the initial 30 chicks given at the kick-off of the project.

We will keep you updated about the health of the birds!