Like other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa where guinea fowl originated from, Benin, which is a country with a population of around 10 million people , is also involved in indigenous guinea fowl production. Mishra et al. ; Sayila and Traore et al. in their various studies found that guinea fowls are generally more resistant than chicken and turkey to most of the common poultry viral diseases such as Newcastle disease, Fowl pox and Gumboro. Guinea fowls are also well adapted to traditional breeding production systems and as such occupy an important position among rural farming households . Guinea fowl contributes immensely to rural households as it serves as a source of animal protein , income generation from the sale of eggs and birds, and thus improving the food security condition and consequently poverty reduction among rural households . Guinea fowl meat and eggs are an excellent choice, both gastronomically and dietetically, with a high protein and low fat content . Apart from income generation and nutritional benefits, guinea fowl perform social and cultural roles in many African societies . Despite the socio-economic importance of guinea fowl in this region, it is faced with some challenges which hamper its optimum production among rural folks. Some of the challenges as documented by Traore et al. include a high rate of mortality particularly during the rainy season. Furthermore, earlier studies examined constraints to optimal poultry farming among households in the Sudanian and Sudano-Guinean areas of Benin. However, in the Guinean zone and selected districts in Sudanian and Sudano-Guinean zones, constraints on optimal guinea fowl production have received little attention from researchers. Also, dutch bucket hydroponic as guinea fowl farming is gaining prominence across all the three climatic zones in Benin and the scarcity of documented information about their socioeconomic correlates and characteristics across the country limit actions to improve and develop its production.
The aim of this study, was to gather data on indigenous guinea fowl farming practices in Benin and generate information that could enhance intervention strategies to combat the constraints and consequently improve the productivity of guinea fowl in Benin.The study was carried out during the second half of 2019. A cross sectional survey was carried out in the district outlined in Figure 1. Primary data was obtained through the administration of a questionnaire to each of the 165 local guinea fowl farmers sampled who reared at least 10 birds on their farm. Information on socio-economic characteristics of farmers, flock size, breeding and herd management technique as well as challenges against optimal production were elicited. Interview guide in local language was furthered employed among farmers as the majority were illiterates. This made it easy to validate the responses obtained from the respondents. In term of reproductive parameters, the hatch rate was computed by asking farmers the number of eggs laid by the birds per laying season and the number of eggs hatched. The mortality rate at one week and three months after hatching were also obtained as a ratio of the total number of dead birds to the total numbers of birds available atone week and three months respectively.The data collected was entered into Excel 2013, before being imported into the R software for statistical analysis. Multiple Correspondence Analysis was used to obtain a representation of farms in the form of projections of plans defined by the first-factor axis as adapted from Audigier et al. . Based on the coordinates of the farms on the main factorial axis, an Ascending Hierarchical Classification was used to group the farms according to their proximity to one another as adapted from Kouassi et al. . Descriptive statistics were used to summarize socio-demographic characteristics as well as other quantitative variables of the poultry farms surveyed. Chi-square test was used to test whether there is a significant difference or not in the farmers’ socio-demographic characteristics across regions and also if guinea fowl production indices differ across regions or not.
Non-parametric Kruskall-Wallis test was used to compare the means of guinea fowl production indices across regions. The significance threshold adopted was 5%.Guinea fowl rearing in the study area was largely dominated by men while very few women were involved as shown in Table 1. In terms of educational qualification, about one-third of the sampled farmers were illiterate while 36.4%, 26.1% and 3.0% had primary, secondary and tertiary education respectively. In addition, Atacora and Alibori regions had more illiterate farmers than the remaining eight regions. The highly educated guinea fowls farmers were found in Collines, Atlantique, Mono and Zou regions. There were no religious discrimination in the rearing of guinea fowl in the study area as it cut across all the religious groups in existence in the study area. However, it was prominent among christians than the other two religious groups. Other livelihood activities than guinea fowl farming among the respondents include crop farming , trading and art and craft . Specifically, of all the regions surveyed, the Alibori region had the lowest number while Atacora had the highest number of guinea fowl farmers.The cumulative contribution to the total inertia of the three selected factorial axis for hierarchical clustering was 92.88%. The frequencies of the different variables relating to the 4 categories of farmers are presented in Table 8. Cluster one was made up of 16.97% of the farmer sampled and were mainly located in the Alibori region. Most of the farmers were illiterate, that is, had no form of formal education and majority also had a minimum of 20 years experience in guinea fowl farming. The farmers in this cluster employed natural method of egg incubation and no additives were added to the birds’ feed and water to combat heat stress. The main and secondary activities of these farmers were livestock farming and crop farming . Extensive method of farming was largely employed by farmers in this region. Cluster 2 involved 25.45% of the farmers sampled. Most of the farmers had a minimum of 20 years farming and were located much more in the region of Atacora and Donga . The farmers in this group were mostly men. They were mostly illiterate and relatively young, as their age ranged between 25 and 50 years .
The average number of eggs used in setting up their farm was between 10 and 50 eggs. In terms of heat stress management by farmers in this cluster, only 7.1% of the farmers used additives in the birds’ drinking water. Most of the farmers engaged in cropping as their main activity and animal husbandry as a secondary activity. Furthermore, 69% of these farmers had shelters for their birds to protect them from harsh weather condition and rest. This feature made them to rear their birds under a semi-intensive system of production. Eggs were also incubated naturally by farmers in this group. Cluster 3 was made up of 24.85% of the farmers sampled. The farmers were mostly men and had primary education . More than half of the farmers in this group had relatively little farming experience in guinea fowl production. Majority of these farmers engaged in animal production as their main activity whereas 73.2% made crop production their secondary activity. The majority of farmers in this group did not add any additive to the feed or to the water of guinea fowl to manage heat stress. Cluster 4 in comparison to other groups, involved 32.73% of the farmers interviewed. These farmers were found mainly in the region of Collines , Atlantique and Zou . They were mostly male and between 25 and 50 years of age . Very few had no formal education with 37%, 44.4 % and 9.3% each having primary, secondary and university education respectively. The production system was largely semi-intensive in nature with very few running an intensive system. Animal husbandry was essentially the secondary activity of farmers in this group while crop farming was their main activity. Artificial incubation was practiced by very few of the farmers.The predominance of men in guinea fowl production as deduced from the study may not be unconnected to the difficulty involved in managing guinea fowl due to the wild instinct that guinea fowl exhibits. This instinct,dutch buckets system which is not very malleable constitutes a major constraint for the women in its production. This finding aligns with the earlier studies carried out in Ivory Coast ; Burkina-Faso and Ghana that found that guinea fowl farmers were predominantly men. Similar findings were reported in Togo , Niger and Zimbabwe . More attention on gender is required in policy design since women’s engagement in integrated farming is undeniable. This same observation is common in most African countries.
The study therefore emphasized the design and translation of technical manuals into local language due to the farmers’ low level of formal education as this will facilitate better understanding of the birds management requirement and subsequently lead to a sustainable development of this sector. Guinea fowl farming however does not present any religious and cultural limits that could hinder its production in rural areas as deduced from the study. This agrees with the earlier submission of Kone et al. and Kouassi et al. . Guinea fowl farmers engaged in other activities to diversify sources of income to meet up with the needs of their families. This result is in agreement with the findings of Traore et al. . The age of the farmers were between 25 and 50 years which was similar to the earlier report of Traore et al. that young people under 20 did not have enough resources to go into guinea fowl production. Farmers received more support from their children which are the employees as family labor. To this end, these farmers take the opportunity to pass on their knowledge and prepare them to take over. Good experience must therefore be documented by reinforcing them with innovative practices to boost the sector to respond more effectively to food security within rural households and in response to climate change, as also evidenced by Fotsa .In the majority of farms surveyed, farmers preferred to use the local hen to guinea fowl for incubating eggs due to their good brooding traits. The use of hens in villages for hatching guinea fowl eggs has been widely reported in other previous studies . In addition, guinea fowl and hen farming are closely linked . Most often, hens are used to incubate the guinea fowl’s eggs. Sometimes farmers also make use of other poultry species such as duck and turkey for the incubation . The feed stuffs used in formulating the diets of guinea fowl in Benin included corn, sorghum, millet, fonio and sometimes rice.
These diets are supplemented in some farms with maggot and termites. This gesture of giving a few handfuls of these feed to the birds was done to train the birds so as to return to the farm after free-ranging. While on free range, guinea fowl also feed on insects and grasses, which further diversified their diet. Traore et al. in Burkina Faso and Kouassi et al. in Ivory Coast, reported that the feed stuffs used for guinea fowl comprised sorghum, millet and corn. These results are different from those obtained in India where rice is the main diet offered to guinea fowl. These findings show that the choice of feed be offered to guinea fowl depends on the local availability and accessibility of the ingredients. The drinking water of guinea fowls was mostly non-drinkable. The lack of drinking water combined with the relentless distribution of mainly energy feed and kitchen waste to guinea fowl constitute factors that reduce the productivity of guinea fowl in rural areas. This same observation has been reported in Togo through the work of Lombo et al. who submitted that guinea fowl receive mainly energy feeds, thus affecting their productivity. Guinea fowl farming was intended to provide additional income to households while providing them with low cholesterol meat . These households were also concerned about the sustainability of the sector by investing in the continuity of the flock. An earlier study reported that guinea fowl production contributes to the cultural and religious ceremonies of certain sociolinguistic groups, including the annual Ditamari festival . This study revealed that bonds of friendship and fraternity are strengthened through the use of guinea fowl as gifts to friends and also, in recognition of services rendered.