Poultry Farmers’ Preference for Commercial and Self-Compounded Feeds in Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State

Abstract

This study investigated the poultry farmers’ preference for commercial and self compounded feeds in Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State. The data were collected with the use of well-structured questionnaires administered to sixty (60) respondents and fifty-two (52) questionnaires were retrieved. Descriptive (frequency and percentage) and inferential (Chi-square) statistics were used to analyze the data obtained from the study. The socio-economic characteristics of the respondents in the study area showed the (90.4%) were males and within the age range of 30-50years (92.3%) and had tertiary education (69.2%). Chi-square analysis shows that a significant relationship exists between the choice of commercial and self- compounded feed due to quality of feed ingredients, the technicality in production, cost of feed, (71.2%) transportation and (71.2%), and attitude of feed vendor and availability of feed ingredient (71.2%). The study concluded that poultry farmers prefer using self compounded feed instead of commercial feeds because self compounded feed are of better quality than commercially compounded feed, self compounded feed is cheaper, while commercial feeds cost more, farmers choose feed based on the perceived quality of the feed, their technical ability to produce feed by themselves, ease of transportation, the attitude of feed vendors and availability of feed ingredients. Based on this finding, it was recommended that farmers should be encouraged to form cooperative societies; government should encourage crop farmers in the study area to produce grain and other needed ingredients in the poultry feed so as to improve the availability of feed ingredients to the feed miller.