Farmers say sweltering days are killing some of their birds

Some of Barbados’ poultry farmers are being plagued with increasing mortality and stunted growth among their chickens, due to the sweltering temperatures of the past summer and questionable animal husbandry practices.

President of the Barbados Egg and Poultry Producers’ Association Stephen Layne disclosed that while larger, more established poultry farmers have technological systems to protect their stock, dozens of small farmers are losing thousands of dollars in investments.

Earlier this month, Barbados TODAY learned of growing frustration among some in the community over the issue which was initially blamed on the quality of feed.

These suspicions were however ruled out during a meeting earlier this week that included officials from the Ministry of Agriculture’s Veterinary Services.

“We were able to narrow it down very much to the very unseasonably hot days,” Layne told Barbados TODAY.

“The feed has been meeting the standard and pens that are able to be kept cool . . . or the newer tunnel pens have been seeing healthy growth rates and low mortality.

“Those houses are doing exceptionally well, which says the other challenges for the conventional houses are environmental, rather than on problems with the feed.”

For the smaller farmers, Layne advised: “In a worse-case scenario, at the hottest time of the day you may want to withdraw feed from them because when they eat a lot of feed, that creates heat internally as well,” the industry spokesman added.

Autopsies carried out by officials from the Veterinary Services revealed that in some cases, the ailments were of a fungal nature, which often occurs when the birds consume mouldy feed stuck in the litter.

Layne revealed that while there are no indications of shortages on the market associated with the deaths, many of the affected farmers are new additions to the subsector who invested thousands after losing private sector jobs to the pandemic.

“The poultry sector has also played its role by reducing the margins of profit to a ‘bare-bones’ situation where consumers could still afford to pay despite the lack of purchasing power,” he explained.

“The industry is bearing a lot of stress from that, so profit margins are down and the cost of everything has gone up. The cost of energy has gone up; the cost of water. . . We recently had an increase in the wage bill that we had to observe as responsible people, but the small farmer at home who is working or going out during the day still needs to have someone to see what is happening to his birds at that hottest time and see if he can slip back home and observe them and see some of those tell-tale signs of the birds panting.

Going forward, the farmers have been urged to improve their farm management protocols to include various cooling mechanisms and frequent supervision.

“[The birds] don’t have a respiratory system like ours. They don’t have sweat glands. So the body can overheat and they could end up with heart attacks and strokes and things like that and you don’t want to lose them at that point in time when you have spent so much money trying to get them to market,” Layne concluded.
(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)