One of the 35 landless villagers in Jhirigaon, Kuni relies completely on the money she and her husband receives from MGNREGS jobs. However, they both work as farm laborers in adjacent communities during the wet season. In order to meet her family’s urgent needs, she also raises four to five native poultry birds. However, she claims that occasionally, due to various chicken diseases, she does not receive the required returns from this kind of revenue. Out of 15 chicks in the previous year, she lost all of them due to fowl pox and assaults by wild animals. As a result of COVID-19, the remaining birds were sold for a lower price, ranging from Rs. 200 to 300 each Bird She states that because individuals in her village cannot afford to pay for the vaccination, the livestock inspector rarely visits to vaccinate the village’s poultry birds. In addition, for unknown reasons, medications are not available to them. The majority of the villagers in Jharigaon raise 4- 5 poultry birds in their homes for meat and to satisfy a pressing need for cash by selling them at the nearby village market, despite the fact that it is not profitable to raise native poultry birds.

“We conveyed our issues to the CYSD-UANAT programme officials when they visited our village to conduct the survey, and they promised to provide 30 poultry birds for a select group of 16 families in our area. However, they also put a requirement on us to build a 10 x 8-foot chicken coop shed in our backyard. We quickly accepted the need because it would only cost us for bamboo or wood logs that were already available in our community”, according to Kuni. She continues, “We also constructed a lovely mud shed with bamboo, shattered bricks, and stones with assistance from the Project. Additionally, the Project helped us out by providing an iron fence, drinkers, and feeders for each of us. On February 11th, 2022, we received chickens that were 28 days old, and had received 15 days of starting food and litter. They frequently visited to check on the birds and taught us about basic bird care”.

Further, she states “We 16, along with other locals, attended a training session on this enhanced breed of poultry bird known as the ‘Kalinga Brown’ on February 23. This bird can lay up to 200–250 eggs annually and is raised for both meat and eggs. During these two days of orientation, we learned everything we needed to know about caring for chicks, including what to feed them, how to prepare their food, how to spot infections, and when to get vaccinations. I also discovered that even though this breed grows quickly, indoor farming greatly increases its food consumption. We also established a corpus fund to control vaccination expenses and stocked a basic medicine kit for our poultry birds. We looked after the birds in this manner. I currently have 25 chickens living in my poultry shed (11 female and 14 male). Although I haven’t sold any birds yet, they are now marketable, and at the going rate, I can easily receive Rs. 350-400 per rooster. If I sell 10 roosters now, I’ll make between Rs. 3500 and Rs. 4000, and starting next month, I’ll make an income of Rs. 5 from each egg.”