Impact of Rearing improved backyard poultry: A study on the rural households of Puducherry

Household backyards of rural regions are rich in natural food base. The natural food base can be brought into human food chain, by converting it into nutritionally balanced egg and chicken meat by adopting backyard poultry (BYP) farming. Rearing of improved chicken varieties, which survive and produce more number of eggs may increase the availability of eggs as well as meat in rural areas and thereby increase the nutritional status of the people.The improved backyard poultry birds have proved their worth in the research farms and the fruits of such germplasms need to be taken to the field for wider application. Although they were released for betterment of the rural people, these strains are not being adopted by the farming community at large especially in Puducherry. The study was taken, with a view to encourage the rural families to rear the improved BYP and to see its impact on the households.