Kuchi chicken offers solution to Marakwet poultry farmers

By Michael Wesonga 

In countries like East Timor, the rare indigenous Kuchi chicken breed is used for cock fighting due to its agility.

But for farmers in Elgeyo/Marakwet County these chicken have become a gateway out of poverty.

The disease resistant chicken that weighs twice as much as conventional breeds is enjoying impressive uptake among poultry farmers in the county for economic empowerment.

The Kuchi bird originally from Lamu, first introduced in the region in 2009 is being used to upgrade the other local breeds and for cross breeding. 

Beatrice Koech, Secretary of Mwanganza Women’s Group in Anin Location says each of their 15 members have about 20 hens each from their initial capital of 2 cocks and 5 hens. 

She says they sell the birds at Sh1500 and Sh2000 for the hen and cock respectively when fully matured while eggs retail at Sh30 compared to Sh8 to Sh10 of other breeds. 

“These birds are uniquely heavy compared to all other breeds and very aggressive while protecting their chicks from predators like eagles,” she explains. 

The farmer notes that they have already sold many birds whose proceeds have been used for paying children’s school fees and home keeping. 

“They are free-range birds just like the rest and eat ordinary food like grass, kales, maize making them very economical to keep,” she offers. 

Mr. William Bore, Keiyo North Sub-County Livestock Production Officer says the birds were introduced in the District courtesy of the effort of a staff that visited Lamu and got interested in the birds.  

“We introduced 40 birds to 7 groups in the larger Keiyo and Marakwet regions through the JICA and Ministry of Agriculture under the Community Agricultural Development Project in Semi -Arid Lands,” he explains. 

Mr. Bore offers the numbers of the birds drastically grown to about a thousand without factoring the number of eggs sold that may raise it to 3000. 

“The birds are on high demand as various people within and outside the county pass through my office for directions on how to access them,” Bore reveals. 

Their downside, he says that they only lay between 8-10 eggs in their hatching season compared to 18-22 by indigenous breeds and rarely brood their eggs. 

“However, it is advisable to loan the eggs for breeding by the other breeds and also thrive well in high temperature regions similar to those in Lamu like here in the Kerio Valley,” the officer elaborates. 

Bore states that they weigh between 6-9Kg and 4-6Kg for the cocks and hens respectively compared to others that rarely get to 4Kg and 2Kg respectively. 

He affirms that they are more resistant to New Castle and Kumboro diseases that sweep about 90 per cent of other breeds. 

John Kigen Kosgey an Extension Officer bought the Kuchi from the group which he has cross bred with Kenbrow and White Lagoon chicken. 

“The result has been heavy but fast maturing chicken adaptive to local climatic conditions with equally larger eggs,” he offers. 

Kuchi are tall and long necked with an upright stance, cushion-like comb and nonexistent wattles.  

It has a large rounded head with a medium sized parrot-like beak with a full and lobster-like tail whereas young ones have yellowish eyes that become pearly pale (milkish) with age. 

 Mr. Benjamin Chesoo a master’s student at University of Eldoret is finalizing his thesis on The Kuchi Ecotype: An entry point towards improving of indigenous chicken production in Kenya. 

The research supervised by Professor Oduoh Oliech evaluated the growth performance of Kuchi growers kept under three management systems: Extensive system (E.S), Extensive system with Supplementation (ESS) and Intensive system (IS). 

“The experimental growers were derived from randomly collected pure Kuchi eggs which were bought, hatched artificially and managed intensively using commercial chick and growers mash from day old to eight weeks,” Chesoo states. 

From week 9 to 11, eighteen growers, had their initial body weights taken, then randomly allocated to the three management systems for a period of three weeks.  

Each system was allocated with six growers disregarding sex. At the end of the study period, the mean weight gains were found to be: 57.83g, 53.28g, and 40.22g, for ES, ESS and IS respectively.  

An analysis of variance was applied using SAS (2011) software tool. The results showed that all the three (ES, ESS & IS) systems of management had performed favorably. 

He recommends that farmers improve other indigenous chicken with the Kuchi ecotype through adequate selection and breeding for upgrade.