Poultry breeding farm suffers from shortage of funds

Regional poultry breeding farms in the district have been suffering for the absence of modern equipment and shortage of manpower.

Sources said, "It is a profitable venture but the farm is suffering for the acute shortage of funds and trained manpower."

Mymensingh Regional Poultry Breeding Farm was established at Dholadia of Mymensingh city under the government's Regional Duck Farm Establishment Project.

It started its operation in 2018 under the Department of Animal Husbandry Department.

Several advanced duck varieties, including Xinding, Khagi Campbell, Beijing, Nageshari and Indian Runner were brought here from abroad for breeding the species.

The ducks that are here grow fast and give more eggs than the domestic varieties. Therefore, the farmers are showing more interest in those duck varieties with a hope to derive benefit from commercial poultry farming.

Sources said the poultry breeding center cannot provide enough ducklings. Although the farm of capacity to produce 3,000 ducks, it only raises 1,500 ducks.

The modern and sophisticated machine for laying eggs is capable of producing about 45,000 ducklings a month, even though there are arrangements for about 15,000 ducklings at a time, they said.

Abu Shoaib, a farmer from Kishoreganj, said the quality of ducklings here is good and they are available at a lower cost than other non-government organizations. But the supply is much less than the demand.

The specialty of the duck farm is that the mother duck and father duck and ducklings are regularly vaccinated.

Ducks usually start laying eggs at the age of 110 to 115 days and continue it from 280 to 300 days. Ducks' weight is also good and meat production is also satisfactory. This is why the demand for this type of poultry is high among the local farmers.

Mymensingh Regional Poultry Breeding Farm sources said from July to December in 2019, around 1, 97, 207 eggs were produced from this duck breeding center and 72,755 one-day-old ducklings were sold.

However, according to the infrastructure of this poultry breeding center, there is a need to have 17 staff members but the farm is run by a manager and only five employees.

Farm manager Sarwar Ahmed said demand could not be met due to a lack of manpower and necessary funds.