Expressing concerns over the possible import of chicken leg pieces from the US, the Telangana Poultry Federation (TPF) has requested the Indian government to impose anti-dumping duty to safeguard the domestic poultry sector. Since Americans don’t prefer chicken leg pieces as they eat only breast part, stocks of thrown away chicken leg pieces are piling up in the US, which wants to dump these products in India.

BENGALURU: The department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Service will soon make Avian influenza testing mandatory for poultry farms to get their annual renewal.

Animal Husbandry Minister A Manju said annual medical certificate will be a must, failing which all the government facilities will be stopped.

AHMEDABAD: President of the broiler farmers' co-ordination committee, Anvesh Patel, in a press release stated that even as some 10km around Hathijan village of Ahmedabad, and the Union Territory of Daman have been declared 'bird flu affected', poultry products are safe to consume. Patel, in the press release, stated that even in the tests conducted by the animal husbandry department, chicken samples were found to be unaffected by the bird flu virus.

Soyabean meal is used as an animal feed.

The exchange already offers futures trade in soyabean and refined soya oil.

NCDEX unveiled futures trade contracts in soyabean meal for delivery in March and April.

SURAT: Valsad administration is unofficially stopping all poultry products from coming into and going out of the district ever since it learnt about suspected bird flu deaths of three ducklings in the Union territory of Daman on Saturday last.

There is no ban on sale of chickens and eggs because bird flu has not been detected in Valsad, yet the local administration has unofficially asked police to not let into the district any vehicle carrying poultry products. This is because some ducks too had died in Daman and a report on them is still awaited by the authorities there.

AURANGABAD: The cash cleanup drive has hit the city's wholesale egg market as prices stood at Rs 380 for a batch of 100 on Sunday. This is around Rs 70 less than what local dealers had anticipated.

Winter generally brings with it a heavy demand for eggs as the protein-laden food promotes body heat during the cold. Egg prices subsequently shoot up as consumption increases manifold and sales go up 100%. The trend, however, appears to have changed this year as the demand for eggs has slipped and prices have follow suit.

With prevailing lowered day and night temperatures may cause egg production to drop, poultry farmers were asked to increased energy content in feeds.

A press release from Agromet Field Unit of Veterinary College and Research Institute here and Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai said that cloudless and chill weather will cause enhanced feed intake in birds.

Nagpur: Started with the aim of providing alternate source of income, a five-day training programme being run by the department of poultry science of Nagpur Veterinary College got good response from farmers.

Under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, state had sanctioned Rs 1.5 crore for the three-year project. Its mandate was to train 500 farmers in poultry farming in Nagpur district. But actual trainings started only in financial year 2016-17. "Yet, 400 farmers received training in the last eight months, first two years of the project went in getting funds released and setting up training centre at Telangkhedi.

Tamil Nadu Poultry Farmers Association has urged the State government to procure eggs for the noon meal scheme directly from the farmers which was followed three years ago.

The silver jubilee celebrations, general body meeting and installation of new office-bearers were held here on Wednesday.Poultry farmers were directly supplying eggs for the noon meal scheme at low price for many years.

Ahmedabad: The president of the Broiler Farmer Coordination Committee (BFCC) Anu Patel met top officials of the animal husbandry department and urged the government to declare the poultry industry safe to save the industry from a crisis.

Patel said they had urged the government to salvage the situation, especially the positive tests for H5N1 came from turkey and guineafowl alone. Not a single case has been reported in poultry but the scare has adversely impacted the sale of chicken, which plunged by 50% in two days.

The Odisha government on Monday said there was no need to panic over bird flu as the bird mortality was reported from a small locality in Rourkela.

The Fisheries and Animal Resource Development (FARD) Department has sent 60 samples for testing at the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal.

Death of some birds in aviary enclosure of the Indira Gandhi Park Zoo, Rourkela, had raised the fear over H5N1virus infection. Samples were sent to NIHSAD, which confirmed the infection. Subsequently, avian enclosures were disinfected.

Poultry farmers were asked to increase the metabolizable energy content and Vitamin D3 content of the feed to restrict the feed intake just above the standard level, the sky will be slightly cloudy with less chance of rainfall over the next four days. Maximum and minimum temperature will be 33 degree Celsius and 18 degree Celsius respectively. Wind speed will be around three km per hour, mostly from southeast. The release said that the week ahead will be the period of lowered day and night temperatures. Cloudless and chill weather will cause enhanced feed intake in birds. Restriction will not help to reduce the egg weight, but may cause egg production to drop. Hence, farmers were advised to increase the energy content of feed to 2,600 kcal/kg.

Saudi joins other West Asian countries such as Kuwait in banning the imports of poultry from India, which reported about seven instances of bird flu outbreak during 2016 with the latest being in Khordha district of Odisha. Saudi was the second largest buyer of Indian poultry products in 2015-16. As per DGCIS, India’s poultry exports to Saudi Arabia stood at ₹95.64 crore, accounting for over 12 per cent of the country’s total poultry shipments of ₹766.71 crore in 2015-16.

The Odisha government on Tuesday initiated the process for culling of poultry in Khurdha district after four dead crows and three dead poultry tested positive for the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.

The government began culling of poultry in Keranga village and within a one-kilometre radius in the district. The bird flu virus was confirmed in this village, about 35 kilometres from Bhubaneswar.

Assam and other North Eastern states are one of the most meat consuming states of India. Apart from livestock, poultry constitutes a major portion of the meat intake by the people of these states. However, due to growing population and declining local reeds of chickens, the majority of the poultry for this region is in the form of broiler chickens and they are supplied from Andhra Pradesh. Day-old chicks are transported by air daily to Guwahati and are further sent to various places by road. The broiler farms, spread across every corner of this entire region grows the day-old chicks to full grown chickens measuring up to 3-4 kgs in weight. Among the other poultry feeds, the farm keepers use antibiotics widely among the broilers.

With drop in the mercury level and change in weather from warm to cold, poultry farmers may have to face some challenges of low environmental temperature, poor ventilation and decreased photoperiod. 

These seasonal fluctuations might directly or indirectly influence the egg and meat production. Therefore, farmers must be ready to take on these challenges by adopting some winter stress-alleviating practices to overcome economic losses.

Nizamabad: The demonetisation of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes has taken a toll on the poultry farming in the district. Farmers are reluctant to take up poultry as they started incurring losses. The price of eggs and chicken has fallen drastically and it has become difficult to find labourers for growing poultry farms. 

New Delhi: More than 8.74 lakh birds have been culled in four states and one union territory so far this year in order to control the spread of bird flu disease in the country, the Parliament was informed today.

There has been no loss of human life so far. The control and containment operations are still going on in Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.As per the data placed before the Upper House, more than 8.74 lakh birds were culled so far this year.

Bhutan for the first time exported eggs to India last week.The agriculture ministry sent about 105 cartons or 800 trays of eggs worth more than Nu 0.17 million in its first consignment to Kolkata, India.

The minister said that there were too many eggs in the market, which is why the ministry decided to try exporting it to India.

BJP MP Poonam Mahajan has urged McDonald’s India to end the procurement of eggs from battery cage facilities and start sourcing only cage-free eggs in its supply chain.

India is the third largest egg-producing country in the world, with approximately 120 million egg -laying hens that are bred in cruel, commercial battery cages that are typically as long as an A4 size paper. Battery cages are named so as they are stacked one on top of the other like batteries. While McDonald’s has promised to phase out battery cages in many countries, there has been no commitment from them in India despite repeated efforts from animal welfare advocates.