By Abdulwasiu Hassan
Nigeria's poultry business seems to be caught in a chicken-and-egg situation as customers show an increasing preference for the slow-growing, more expensive native breed of bird over the easier to rear, and more widely available, broiler variety that is bred exclusively for its meat.
For Musa Isiyaku, a chicken retailer in Dawanau market of Nigeria's Kano State, going the way the cock crows may be a no-brainer, but sourcing enough quantity of birds to meet customer needs and play for scale is proving a challenge.
"Most of my customers prefer the native chicken breed. If that's not available, they would rather not buy anything," Musa tells TRT Afrika.
According to him, the key differences between the native variety and broiler chicken lie not just in taste and price, but also longevity of the meat.
“If native chicken is fried, it can last up to a week without going bad. But broiler meat can potentially go bad a day after being cooked," he says
Search in village
What used to be a niche market for the native breed is now a booming business. Such is the demand that Musa and his like sometimes struggle to meet customer needs partly because of the dwindling population of the native breed.
"It will be another four months from now, when the rainy season winds down, that stocks will grow," says Musa.
He currently makes up to N80,000 (over $100) daily selling the local breed. During the peak period that coincides with the harvesting season, sales can potentially go up to N100,000 ($131) a day.
People rearing birds at home usually take their available stock to the market for retailers like him to sell. Many retailers also visit the villages in search of homegrown birds that they buy and resell at the Dawanau market in Kano.
Some wholesale dealers go as far as Niger Republic in search of birds to meet the demands of a growing market, according to Musa.
"These are usually the big players who sell chicken worth N500,000 to N1,000,000 in a day," Musa says.
'Sweeter meat'
Organised commercial poultry farming in Nigeria is normally done with either broilers for meat, layers for eggs, or dual-purpose breeds like noilers for both meat and eggs.
Lately, some farmers in northern Nigeria have taken rearing the local breed of chicken for commercial purpose in a more organised and elaborate fashion to keep with changing customer preferences.
One of those following this trend is Abba Hassan in Kano. Hassan believes rearing the traditional breed of chicken can be more profitable than focusing on fast-growing broiler, provided the farmer adheres to the technical requirements.
“We all know that traditionally bred chicken has sweeter meat and is more tolerant to diseases, but its major problem is inability to grow faster," he tells TRT Afrika.
Cross-breeding the native breed with larger varieties gives the farmer an opportunity to get bigger birds without losing out on the meat quality and ruggedness of the local one.
Assisted hatching
"With cross-breeding, the production level of native chickens reaches commercial levels without losing their distinctive taste and disease-resistant nature," says Hassan.
A coop of commercial chicks being reared by a farmer normally gets booked by a retailer with an advance payment. "But if you want the native breed, you just buy it as parent stock," explains Hassan.
"Earlier, people would raise native chicken as a hobby or just part of culture. The world has since developed. Now, I think about how I am going to raise native breed of chicken as a business," he says.
Hassan sees cross-breeding not as a dilution of the native breed, but as a means to increase its value.
"The local breed can produce more chicks with assisted hatching through locally-made incubators. Chickens will lay more if the task of hatching eggs is taken away from them," he says.
