High demand overwhelms Bhutan's poultry centre

The regional piggery and poultry breeding centre in Lingmithang, Mongar, struggles to meet pork and poultry demand of the six eastern districts in Bhutan.

The centre is especially facing a stiff challenge from the steep demand for eggs and chickens, in the absence of imported poultry products to supplement.

The centre's in charge, Pema Wangdi, said they had just as many customers visiting the centre in person, as there were phone inquiries. He explained that the prime reason for the increase in demand for eggs and poultry from the farm was because of its comparatively lower costs than those sold by private individuals.

''We sell each egg for Nu 6 (US$0.13) as opposed to private farms' Nu 10 (US$0.22) for each egg,'' Pema Wangdi said, adding that many private poultry farms had cropped up in the last few years, raising the lucrativeness of the business.

Today, the centre has about 1,355 productive hens, 1,115 progenies or chicks and 129 roosters.

Centre officials said they collected about 800 or 900 eggs every day, of which 300 were taken by rushing customers to the centre, with the rest reserved for hatching. ''Around 2,500 eggs are set aside for incubation every 10 day. There's an unmet demand of over 60,000 pullets from the eastern districts,'' Pema Wangdi said.

The centre has supplied about 9,000 pullets and 3,000 day-old chicks this year across the eastern dzongkhags. The pullets go for Nu 100 (US$2.16) each and the day-old chicks for Nu 21 (US$0.45).

Centre officials said they imported hens from Pune in India once every year. Beginning this year, about 1,300 hens have been ordered from New Zealand, following a shortage in India, which are expected to arrive in July.  ''We're planning to get additional incubators to serve the rising demand,'' Pema Wangdi said.