Blistering heatwave conditions with temperatures soaring to over 45 degrees Celsius has badly hit the poultry industry. The mortality rate has increased from 10% to 30%, while chicken and egg production have declined. Despite the efforts of poultry farmers to protect the birds by using sprinkles to bring down the heat around the farms, they have failed in minimising bird deaths owing to shortage of groundwater. Many are forced to closed down their units too.
Unlike in other seasons, poultry farmers need more water to keep the birds cool in summer. But the soaring temperatures and non-availability of water have already resulted in shutting down of 100 poultry units in the erstwhile Karimnagar district.
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This has led to chicken prices going up from ₹180 per kg to ₹240 a kg in the open market. The poultry farmers say that even the cost of feed has increased owing to low production of maize in the district after the Fall Army Worm (FAW) attack in the recent years. Earlier, a quintal of feed costed ₹1,600 which has gone up to ₹2,200 now. Each bird consumes around 3.4 kg of feed and grows up to 2-2.5 kg. But during summer, the birds are fed less that slows down their growth, and sometimes leads to their death.
Layer Poultry Association district president Bhoom Reddy says 100 to 150 birds die every day unable to bear severe heat, causing a loss to the tune of over ₹20,000 a month to a poultry farmer. The government should step in and take measures to protect the poultry industry by supplying power and providing feed on subsidy, says Poultry Farmers’ Association president Ontela Muralikrishna Reddy. Experts in the poultry industry say that the prices of chicken would further increase due to decline in production and high mortality rate of birds.
The farmers rue that they could protect their birds from bird flu and other diseases, but were unable to protect them from severe heatwave conditions.
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