Popularization of Koekoek poultry breed for enhancing livelihood of poor households: A case of Southern Tigray, Ethiopia

Demonstration of Koekoek breed was conducted at Raya-Azebo and Enda-Mehoni Woredas with 10 poor households with the objective of increasing the productivity of poultry thereby improving livelihood of the resource poor farmers in Ethiopia. Koekoek breed had significantly (P<0.05) superior on number of eggs laid per clutch (26 egg/clutch) as compared to local breed (15 egg/clutch). Beside this, the Koekoek breed is also superior in both sexes (male 2.6 kg and female 1.9 kg) on yearly body weights as compared to local breed. Koekoeks breed had significant (P<0.05) mean scored of 6 over local breed on production and reproduction performance. The farmers perceived that Koekoek breed had superior traits on body weight, number of eggs laid per month, egg size, vent size and marketability weight of egg. However, local breed was as superior as Koekoek breed on tail height, body color, leg length and color. The breed is now playing a great role as source of cash income to the beneficiary households and covers various expenses such as educational expense, saving, routine daily life expense, house equipments, electronic device sheep and feeds. Also, the breed is being disseminated to large number of farmers through the farmer to farmer dissemination approach. Beneficiary farmers are selling eggs to their neighbors and the male Koekoeks are playing roles as community based breed improvement. Hence, efforts should be made by the extension and other actors to further scale out the breeds. Key words: Body weight, chicken, egg, farmers, local.