XN000022-1973-12-30 — Page 3

Sunday, December 30, 1973

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CHICKEN BREEDING AN IMPORTANT INDUSTRY

Family-type chicken farms in the New Territories play an important

role in chicken farming in Hong Kong.

These farms, which number about 4,000, form the nucleus of the

industry which, in terms of value, is an essential form of livestock

husbandry in Hong Kong, yielding more than $148 million for the farmers

last year.

Chicken raising is carried out extensively in many parts of

the N.T. and the products supplied almost 53 per cent of the total domestic

consumption of live chickene in 1972.

The Agriculture and Fisheries Department gives every encouragement

and assistance to the farmers to help them develop their industry and improve

their products.

A spokesman said that the chief beneficiaries of the department's

services were the operators of the family-type farms, each of which produced

between 500 and 70,000 chickens a year, depending on their sizes.

He said poultry husbandry experts of the department recommended to

the farmers modern methods of the industry, such as incubation, poultry

nutrition, ration formulation and poultry housing so as to put their operation

on a more scientific basin.

A recent addition to this team is Miss Tam Yuen-yin who returned

to Hong Kong just a few months ago from Britain after studying poultry

husbandry for two years.

The department also helped the farmers to prevent and control major

fowl diseases such as Newcastle and fowl cholera. These diseases could be

responsible for high mortality rates, the spokesman pointed out.

/The

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