Toxicity in poultry

 Written by: Mir Aqa Atabar

Most rural residents of Afghanistan keep chickens in their homes and as the numbers of their chickens are small, they could take care of them easily but the big poultry farm owner face some problems.

AEPO’s writer/producer has talked to some poultry farm owners about their problems.

Yama Rasta, one of the poultry farm owner in Kabul city says: “I have the largest poultry farm in Kabul, and I keeps and sells more than 22,000 chickens each time but the toxicity in chickens, takes the life of about 54% of my chickens and I have faced 187000 Afghanis loss yet."

Another farm owner, Abdul Maten says: “I had 1200 chickens last year; as they could not eat grains, 700 of them died of the effect of toxin, and I faced about 80,000 Afghanis loss.”

Doctor Abdul Hafez, an employee of horticulture and livestock department, ministry of Agriculture of Afghanistan says: “When a toxicity spreads in a poultry farm and if the farm owner does not treat the poultries at the primary stage, all chicken would be infected by this disease and would die. The chickens die out of this disease are not used, and the farm owner has to bury all the poultries.”

What do people think about the causes of toxicity in poultry?

Yama Rasta says: “: Toxicity in poultry has several causes, 1:  the poultry farms are not built standard in Afghanistan. 2: We have no regular treatment of poultry. 3: There is no professional expertise in the maintenance of chickens. 4: chicken feeds are not well-prepared and 5: The dead poultry not buried and if the other chickens eat them, they would transfer the disease to the farm.”

Doctor Abdul Hafez says: " the main causes of toxicity in poultry are the environmental conditions, food changing, climatic conditions, and applying expired medicines to the poultry. When a farm owner finds out the sign of toxicity in poultry, he should take the infected poultry to a poultry veterinarian and after treatment and before releasing the infected poultry into the farm, he should spray the farm first.”