Photos’ credit: Lucka Paschal and Erick Kiiza (Tanzania)
Description: Lucka Paschal and Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the website)
The inserted pictures were taken during 2010 in an integrated fish-chicken farm located at Tarime District in Mara Region, Tanzania. Tarime is one of the districts of Mara Region and is situated in the north of Tanzania. The district has a total area of about 11,100 km2 and lies between 1200-1500 m above sea level whereas temperature ranges from 20-25 C.
The practices in such farms have been benefited from the outcome of a national study carried out in the district whereas the participatory approach has been adopted in which fishery agency, research institutes and farmers worked together targeting to enhance the farm productivity and profitability through appropriate, affordable and adoptable technologies.
Typically, in such type of integration, poultry rearing unit (chicken huts) are placed on the top of water surface in fish pond where tilapia has been the species of choice. Chicken feed is mixed on-farm using locally available feed ingredients. No supplemental feed is provided to fish throughout the culture period as the poultry droppings and spilled feed from poultry would provide feed for the fish either directly or through enhancing water productivity. In regard to laying hens, the chicken huts are furnished with wooden egg laying boxes (30 cm × 30 cm × 30 cm).
