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Feed factor: Haryana poultry farmers forced to bury starving birds alive
Drop in demand and lack of feed has forced many such farmers to adopt this measure.
The coronavirus outbreak has hit the poultry sector hard and left farm owners in Haryana’s Bhiwani, Dadri, Rohtak and Jind districts with no other option but to bury thousands of chickens alive.
Drop in demand and lack of feed has forced many such farmers to adopt this measure.
Rajbir Singh, owner of a poultry farm in Bhiwani, said he has buried over 12,000 birds alive in last 10 days due to acute shortage of feed. “I have suffered a loss of ₹23 lakh in last four months. Now, experts are saying that the situation is unlikely to improve till August,” he added. Vikas Mehla, another such farmer from Bhiwani’s Mandhan, said he buried 6,500 birds on Thursday. “The nationwide lockdown has snapped the supply of bajra and feed. We buried them so that they do not die of starvation and further spread disease,” he added.
Subhash Deswal, a feed supplier from Jind, said chicken was being sold in the market at ₹2 per kg against production cost of ₹75 per kg of bird.
“Prices of chicken and eggs in the market have come down drastically owing to rumours linked to coronavirus. I suffered a loss of ₹1.5 crore as poultry farmers are staring at huge losses with the demand nosediving.”
