March 1, 2007

Pakistan's poultry flocks dying in cold snap

Unexpected late winter chill has killed poultry flocks in Pakistan creating a supply gap and pushing prices up.

Broiler chicken rates jumped nearly 5 percent to Rs92 per kg from Rs86 in the retail market recently. Prices as of Feb 1 was at Rs74, meaning a 25-percent jump since the beginning of the month. Prices for chicken meat has also went up 14 percent to Rs160 per kg from Rs140 per kg a day earlier.

A member of the Pakistan Poultry Association, Maroof Siddiqi, said the cold spell in the last two months had thinned out poultry population at farms

He said whole flocks were killed amid the unexpected chill. Farmers have had to incur extra heating costs to protect their flocks.

Many poultry farmers had chosen to reduce flock sizes to utilise lesser number of sheds and cut back on heating costs.

At the same time demand has been slowly rising since the Muharram festival.

However, Siddiqi predicted that prices would not be likely to increase further as they had touched the extreme level while supply pressure could remain for the next two weeks.

Supply would stabilise in a few weeks, as fresh flocks of chicks would be ready for markets, he said.