Adedeji Adeyinka Paul^1,, Okuneye Peter Adebola¹, Akerele Dare¹, Isah Olubukola²

This study was a comparative economic analysis of poultry egg production under different production systems in Oyo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire from 134 (75 battery cage and 59 deep litter systems) poultry farmers through a multistage sampling procedure in three agricultural zones of the State. Descriptive statistics, budgetary techniques, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Tobit regression and student-t test methods were used to analyze the data. Results showed that the mean ages of the farmers were 44 and 40years for battery cage and deep litter systems respectively, while 97.3% and 97.0% of battery cage and deep litter system users had formal education respectively. Also, 78.9% and 88.1%; 65.3% and 57.6%; 25.3% and 28.8% of battery cage and deep litter users were male, members of cooperative society and had extension contacts respectively while 57.3% and 76.3%; 86.7 and 84.8% of battery cage and deep litter users used Isah Brown breed and commercial feed respectively. The Net Farm Incomes (NFI) per bird for battery cage system were ₦2,052.17; ₦1,282.86 and ₦1,605.28 while that of deep litter system were ₦1,897.84; ₦1,467.46 and ₦1,236.06 for small, medium and large scale farmers respectively. DEA revealed that the mean technical efficiencies for battery cage and deep litter systems were 0.892 and 0.912. Tobit regression revealed that the determinants of technical efficiency of farmers using battery cage system were extension visits (p<0.01); gender (p<0.01); farmers’ years of education (p<0.05) and membership of cooperative society (p<0.05). Also, the efficiency of farmers using deep litter system was influenced by breed of bird (p<0.01); feed type (p<0.01) and gender (p<0.01). This study concluded that there is no efficiency loss in the choice of either of the systems, except that expansion may be restricted in deep liter system if land constraints exist. The study recommended that farmers who wish to invest in poultry egg production are at liberty to choose either of the systems depending on the intended scale of production.

comparative, efficiency, determinants, table egg farms, deep litter, battery cage, data envelopment analysis, Oyo state, Nigeria