Economics of Small-Scale Layer Production in Three Selected Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Sokoto State, Nigeria

The study was conducted in three LGAs of Sokoto State to assess the economic performance of small-scale layer production. The three LGAs were purposively chosen because they represented areas with high concentration of poultry farmers in the State. Using a sampling frame of poultry farmers obtained from the State Ministry of Agriculture and Agricultural development Project (ADP), 40 poultry farmers were randomly selected from each LGA giving a total of 120 farmers who were used for the study. Data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire administered by field enumerators. Farm budgeting, financial ratios and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The results showed that majority of the layer producers were male (70%), had tertiary education (77.4%) and were within the working age group (89.2%). Self financing was the predominant (65%) source of investment fund and intensive management system was most common (95%) among the layer producers. Variable cost contributed more (94.46%) to the total cost of production. Among the variable costs, however, cost of feed was the most important accounting for 43.75% of the total cost. Revenue from egg sale contributed most (59.12%) to the gross income realized per bird. The NFI/bird was N1793.41 indicating that layer production enterprise was profitable in the study area. The gross ratio was .33 indicating a successful business performance and the simple rate of return was 2.00 indicating a return of N2 for every N1 invested into the enterprise. Furthermore the operating ratio was .31 indicating high strength of the enterprise to maintain the current profitability and the income/expense ratio was 3.00 indicating that the enterprise was very solvent. Based on the results obtained, layer production in the study area was found to be an economically lucrative business venture.