Pakistan produces 1.2bln broiler chickens annually

KARACHI: Pakistan has become the world’s 11th biggest producer of broilers, producing 1.2 billion meat-type chickens annually on ‘a critically balanced diet’, an industry official said on Friday.

A spokesman of the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA), in a statement, said the broilers available in local markets are fed on the same genetic nutrients as of US, Europe, India, Brazil, Argentina and China and denied that they were fed on hormones. 

The spokesman, however, said a broiler chick gains more than 2.2- kilogram in weight in five weeks in US, Brazil and Argentine because of the availability of low priced-edible oils and feed grains with higher energy content.   It takes around six weeks for a broiler chick to gain the same weight, he added.

 “Since the chicken gains weight faster in US, it should be questioned whether they too give hormones and steroids,” he said. “A knowledgeable producer avoids using animal by-products as feed for they are a source of Salmonella and other bacterial contaminants, which would cause a greater loss to the producer than any benefit.”

Mostly, chicken diet constitutes of corn, broken rice, wheat bran, rice polishing, corn by-products, oil seed meals and vegetable oil.  Giving a reason behind the rapid output, he elaborated that a tremendous progress has been made in the fields of poultry genetics, nutrition, housing, management practices and disease control and eradication.  

He said there are three major poultry genetic companies operating in the world, conducting research on disease-resistance breeds, improving digestive system for better absorption of nutrients to reduce feed cost.

The PPA official, citing a research study, said broiler weight has been gaining between two and three percent per annum since 2005.   “In 1957, a day old chick weighed 34 grams; in 1978 it weighed 42 grams and in 2005 it weighed 44 grams,” he said. “A 28-day broiler weighed 316 grams in 1957, 623 grams in 1,978 and 1,396 grams in 2005.” 

The official said modern poultry houses in Pakistan have controlled environment with fans, lighting and heating to tap the optimum genetic potential. He said a critically balanced diet is fed and formulated on a computer to give a balance between energy, protein and essential amino acids. “A deficiency or an imbalance of any one of the nutrients would affect the optimum genetic potential,” he added.

The spokesman said egg laying strain chicken or desi chicken, which have a different genetic material than the meat type, are fed with nutrition far superior than the one given to the meat type.