Missionary in Haiti wants help starting a chicken program

[Yay Chicks!]

Quote:
I would keep trying to contact someone at Heifer. They know what they are doing and it could save your friend's mission lots of time and money in the long run.

 

[gjensen]

I am going to take the oppurtunity to share some thoughts on the subject. I considered before the last Christmas to contribute to a missionary group that gave farm animals to less fortunate groups and families. Similar to what is being discussed here. I did not contribute any money for this reason. I did not think that it would help. Haiti does not have a surplus of grain and most people that live in Haiti could not afford the feed to adequately support themselves, much less animals. Sometimes you exchange one need for another. I would love to see a program that was built around more efficient birds that do not require the volumes of grain that most of our birds need.
American and Old English games can be selected to lay up to 140 - 160 eggs a year and rustle up the majority of their own food in a rural enviroment. Fayoumis are fantastic layers off of meager diets. Both have strong immune systems and can thrive in a place like Haiti. I am sure that there is local stock than can be selected from and improved on. Early American farms and households used low input poultry to supplement their needs. My point is that the Haitians need the grain more than any birds they might recieve. Historically poultry meat was a luxury and a side to keeping poultry for eggs. Haitian systems to improve have to start where we began. I realize what century we are in, but sometimes you have to start over and go back to the basics. You have to start at the bottom not at the top. We may be questioning the sustainability and stability of our systems before long ourselves.
Our agriculutural system is impressively efficient outside of any animal welfare concerns we might have. We are however blessed with an abundance of resources places like Haiti are not. Should they be dependant on our grain (that our system is based on)? No. I think they need to learn to work with what they have. It is the only option for some hope of a sustainable system. I think we should be willing to help as you guys obviously are. If someone gave me some information on a group that is helping (that is really helping) I would love to contribute. We don't seam to have the mental capacity or the moral clarity to really help sometimes. Sometimes the "worst" things to happen to us are the best things for us, and the "best" things that happen to us are the worst things for us.
Please do not interpret this as a critical. Me and my poor language skills is trying to share a perspective. If anyone has any information on groups that can be contributed to please share them.

 

[The Kibble Goddess]

Gjensen,
These are good points and they will be addressed as the program is developed. It may turn out that the chicken project won't fly (pun intended

, but it's my opinion that the garden plants -> livestock -> manure for soil enrichment -> back to garden plants cycle in Haiti is broken and repair has to start somewhere. The local farms have some stock but they're consuming all they can grow themselves and nothing is making it to market. I don't know if/what the missionaries are currently feeding their chickens - that will be covered in my next email to them. I'm wondering if we need to start with raising earthworms, mealworms or Black Soldier Fly larva to provide feed for the chickens. These can be raised off scraps and would provide the protien needed.

There is so much to discover and organize that it will probably take over a year to get the program running. But if we do this right, the whole villiage will benifit.

 

[centrarchid]

I agree with gjensen. Resource base of most Haitians inadequate for diversion of limited grain production from direct human consumption to poutry.

Use of locally occuring breeds also most likely best option. Promoting use of co-grazing of chickens with rumminants they already have and habitat management promoting forages suitable for poultry should also be considered. Chickens can meet about 1/3 of their energy requirments from foraging on vegetative plant parts but not all plants are equal for supplying that 1/3 of requirment.