Rationale

In India, about 80% human population live in rural areas and the rural economy is mostly of agrarian type where landless and small land-holding people depend on livestock including poultry rearing for their livelihood. According to the 20^th Livestock census conducted in 2019, total poultry population in India was 851.8 million of which 37.2% population is native type. As compared to 19^th Livestock census conducted in 2012, native poultry population was increased by 45.79% in 2019, whereas commercial poultry population was increased by only 4.5% during the same period (DADF, 2019). In 2019, poultry meat production was 4.06 million tonnes, which was around 50% of the total meat production in the country (DADF, 2019). In 2019, total egg production in the country was 103.32 billion with per capita availability of 79eggs/head/annum. However, contribution of egg production by native chickens was 17.8% of the total egg production in the country. The annual growth rate of meat and egg production has been pegged at around 7-9% and 5-6%, respectively.

Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) has been one of the most significant animal species across the Globe because of its huge extent as important source of animal protein in human diet. India has diverse agroclimatic regions that contains unique scope of altitudes and climates making astounding genetic diversity of Indian chickens. As a nodal agency for breed registration in India, ICAR-NBAGR, Karnal, India registered 19 indigenous chicken breeds, which are Ankaleshwar, Aseel, Busra, Chittagong (Malay), Danki, Daothigir, Ghagus, Harringhata Black, Kadaknath, Kalasthi, Kashmir Favorolla, Miri, Nicobari, Punjab Brown, Tellichery, Mewari, Kaunayen, Hansli and Uttara. These native chicken breeds spread across the country where the local people rear these birds for their socio-economic benefits.

Due to abundance of many new crossbred varieties spread all over the country, the native pure breed chicken populations are facing problems of existence. Farmers prefer these varieties for their better productivity and use these birds for production of chicks. Sometimes, they cross these varieties with local native breeds keeping in mind of obtaining more yield from the crosses developed from native breeds. On account of such indiscriminate un-scientific crosses, many of the native chicken breeds under threat and their populations are decreasing gradually. The Government of India is time to time conducting Livestock and Poultry census in the country to update the animal population and their contribution in the national economy. Many Government Organizations or their sponsored organizations are in fact involved in Census activities. During surveying the livestock and poultry populations, these organizations are enumerating the numbers and the performances of Livestock and poultry breeds. These breed specific enumeration needs specialized and experienced technical persons to identify the pure breeds for population specific census. Sometimes, human errors of judging the birds reduce the accuracy of enumeration. In addition, there are a lot of variabilities among the enumerators in enumerating animal population. To conduct uniform survey, a common approach may be adopted by the enumerators for which an Android based App may be extremely helpful for the enumerators to count and record the population size and performance information of the animals. Till date, there is no such App is available in the country for conducting such breed-based census of livestock and poultry. Under such scenario, we have developed a mobile phone-based App to conduct accurate survey of livestock and poultry in the country.

 

Rearing of native birds

Chickens have been domesticated in India for various purposes including decoration, religions, cockfighting, and food production. In India, different agro-climatic regions harbors different breeds of chicken, which are adapted in those specific environments. The local farmers are very conservative and they rear those birds for their socio-economic purposes. They do not prefer to sell their birds to the farmers outside the home tracts of that specific breed and those birds have become the part and partial of the life of local people. Thus, the farmers maintain the identity of the specific local birds and accordingly, they are maintaining those local birds since last few centuries. On account of geographical and reproductive isolation of the local birds, the birds' phenotypes and adaptability become unique due to same lineage and breeding within the group.

The rural people mostly prefer rearing of native chickens over high yielding exotic birds as the native birds do not need extra nutritional and managemental support for producing eggs or meat when the people provide their kitchen and house waste to the birds as supplementary feed. The native birds perform at their best with scavenging in the backyards of their owners without getting extra support, which needs additional investment. Thus, for rural people, rearing native chickens not only provide their livelihood but also nutritional security.

The phenotypes of the indigenous chicken population varied in shape, size, anatomy, growth, production, reproduction, etc. accordingly, there are differences in appearance of these population found in different regions of the country. There is a need to characterize these native populations for preservation and improvement of their performances for the benefit of poultry keepers. Hence, it is immensely important to compile concise phenotypic and genotypic characters of native chicken breeds of India from the published literature so that the stakeholders may categorise their birds in a particular indigenous breed group or any other group or non-descript type. At present, predominance of many commercial chicken varieties at the village level farmers make the farmers very difficult to protect their indigenous stock in pure forms as most of the consumers in India prefer eggs/meat of indigenous chicken over those of commercial chicken varieties and accordingly, the farmers of pure indigenous chicken breeds fetch better premium price of eggs/meat of indigenous chicken over those of commercial chicken.

 

Future prospective and commercial use of Indian chicken

India having rich biodiversity in poultry germplasm adaptable in diversed agroclimatic regions caters socio-economic needs of millions of rural poultry farmers by supporting them monetarily through selling poultry produces such as eggs and meat. Indian sub-continent covers various climatic conditions such as deserts; hot and humid coastal regions; hilly terrain regions; plain agricultural lands; arid and semi-arid regions; heavy, medium and low rainfall regions; island ecosystems etc. where indigenous chicken breeds found their home tracts and perform at their best. In the difficult agroclimatric conditions such as deserts, hilly terrains, arid zones and island ecosystems, exotic chicken breeds mostly facing adaptability problems do not perform well and sometimes, face survivability issues on account of severe environmental stress. However, indigenous breeds combat these adverse climatic conditions and perform well, for example, Nicobari chicken lay 150 eggs per annum under island ecosystem (Andaman & Nicobar Island) where temperature rich upto 40^oC with more than 95% relative humidity through out the day and night. The Mewari chicken adapted at desert climate of Rajasthan state attain body weight of 1.9kg in cocks and 1.2kg in hens at 18 to 20 weeks of age and hens lay 40 to 50eggs per annum. Thus, the rural farmers of indigenous chicken breeds possessing beneficial genes controlling adaptability in the adverse climatic conditions can fetch supplementary incomes through selling eggs and meat during lean season.

The unique traits of the indigenous breeds such as adaptability, survivability in the hot and humid stressful conditions, survivability on the low input diet or through scavenging, black colour meat, flying and running habbits for protecting them from predators, long shank length etc. may be utilized to develop new high yielding chicken varieties adaptable to the adverse climatic conditions through introgression of the unique traits in recipient exotic or high yielding chicken breeds by subsequent selective breeding for 5 to 6 generations followed by random mating. Through gene introgression approach, location specific high yielding chicken varieties may be developed for rearing them in the specific regions, which can successfully caters the needs of the local farmers. The poultry produces such as meat and eggs of the indigenous as well as location specific chicken varieties can fetch premium price and consequently, benefits the local farmers. The systematic farming approach thus, can uplift the socio-economic conditions of the rural farmers in India.