Rainbow Rooster Birds in South India
INDIA - Rainbow Rooster, a dual-purpose, multi-coloured, low-input bird from Indbro Research & Breeding Farms is gaining popularity in southern states of India.The farmers of Maharashtra who supply most of the native chickens to Mumbai city have found an advantage in rearing good quality chicks of Rainbow Rooster over native chickens by way of faster growth and similar look and taste. Indbro Research & Breeding Farms has enhanced the hatching capacity of these chicks to 200,000 chicks per month to meet the demand.
The state of Andhra Pradesh has given a contract to supply 600,000 four-week-old birds vaccinated against Newcastle Disease and pox in 22 districts of the state. The supplies are part of a central government-sponsored rural poultry programme to commence in May 2014.
Negotiations are complete to establish the parent stock farms in the neighbouring state of Odisha to make the chicks available in larger numbers. The first batch of 12,000 parents will be placed in April 2014. About 30 hatcheries of the state government of Odisha are already hatching the fertile eggs supplied from Hyderabad over the last two years.
Indbro Research & Breeding Farms' participation and showcasing of Rainbow Rooster and Indbro Brown layers in the exhibition at Kochi in the coastal state of Kerala during the first week of March 2014 generated great interest in farmers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states of India.
Negotiations are underway to set up many smaller units by the farmers with the help of the state governments to take advantage of the versatile Rainbow Rooster and the sturdy Indbro Brown Layer.