May 14, 2007

 

Pakistan opens its first grandparent hatchery

 

 

Pakistan now has one of the worlds largest grandparent hatchery, with the opening of its GP farm at Tentulia, the country's newspaper reported. 

 

The farm, was set up by Aqua Breeders Ltd, a local company which plans to  produce and market 4,000 day old broiler-breeder parents daily.

 

The country's first grandparent poultry farm could reduce import of broiler-breeder parent stocks by one-fifth, saving the country about US$2.17 million in foreign exchange.

 

Besides providing jobs, the plant would also serve to lower prices of chicken meat locally.

 

The new farm is getting technical support from Dutch company Hybro, which said it would help reduce cost, minimise mortality rate and ensure supply of climatised birds

 

The Hybro birds would be produced in a totally controlled environment so they can grow 10 times faster than normal chickens and lay eggs in time, Dr Arif M Malik, Technical Advisor of Hybro said.

 

Each parent bird would lay around 180 eggs in its 65-week life cycle. Aqua Breeders also has its own in-house feed mill inside the farm.

 

Hybro Bird species were first brought into Bangladesh in 1979. Now three other brands of foreign poultry -- Hubbard (France), Aviagen (UK) and Cobbs (USA and UK) -- are available.

 

To produce one-day-old parents stock, the farm has been rearing 20,000 pieces of grandparents against its capacity of 30,000 pieces.

 

The farm would also support operations of 130 one-day-old broiler-breeder farms in the country, thus bringing down prices.
 

The poultry industry is the second largest industry sector of Pakistan.

 

LCCI (Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry) president Shahid Hassan Sheikh said the poultry industry has seen strong growth annually since the early sixties.