Both poultry farmers and feed agents in Tsirang learned a lot of lessons after the first nationwide lockdown in August last year. The district reported an acute shortage of poultry feed during the first lockdown, claiming the lives of several birds, but not this time.
One of the highest egg producing districts in the country, Tsirang devoted to making the essential supplies as available as possible during the first lockdown. And this left the birds in poultry farms with an only limited stock of feed.
Tsirang Dzongdag Pema said the shortage of animal feed was unexpected. ”We did not expect any difficulty in transporting the animal feed from the manufacturers, but the shortage confronted us in the first few days of the lockdown.”
Lesson learned, the dzongkhag paid attention to every minute detail of this lockdown and strategised a continuous supply from Gelegphu and Phuentshogling. This, according to the Chairman of the Poultry Cooperative Dewan Pradhan was the only possible support rendered to them by relevant stakeholders.
”During the first lockdown, we had difficulty transporting the feed due to travel restriction along the way but this time we don’t have any restriction,” he said.
And because of this, farmers can maintain an undisrupted supply of eggs.
The dzongkhag has formed a committee of feed manufacturers and poultry farmers and strategised a way forward.
”If problems are beyond the capacity of the farmers, the dzongkhag administration intervenes by directly dealing with the manufacturers,” added Dzongdag Pema.
In the last three weeks, the district livestock sector supplied six truckloads of eggs to Bhutan Livestock Development Corporation in Thimphu.
Tsirang has 140 layer farms with over 100,000 birds. Of it, 64 are registered members of Tsirang Poultry Cooperative.
Pema Tshewang
