By Our Correspondent

Sindhuli, Mar. 29: Poultry farming in the district has fallen into crisis following the implementation of nationwide lockdown.
The poultry farming has been affected badly due to the shortage of feed while the sales of chicken has been halted by the lockdown effective from Tuesday, said poultry farmers.
According to poultry farmer of Dovantar, Kamalamai Municipality-4, Ramchandra Karki, sales of chicken had almost stopped due to lockdown.
“There are about 250 broiler chickens in my farm which are ready to sell but I could not sell them due to the lockdown,” he said.
He said that there was shortage of feed and almost all the meat shops were closed following the announcement of lockdown which has hit the poultry business severely.
After the closure of the meat shops, he has started to sell his chickens reaching people’s doorsteps through personal contact, he said.
He said that he started selling at Rs 600 per chicken (hen) and Rs 700 per chicken (rooster) having weight of 3.5 kilograms.
Another farmer of Kamalamai Municipality-5 Simale, Govinda Khadka, said that he had faced a shortage of feed for his 8,000 chickens.
“I am just feeding around two sacks of feed for 8,000 chickens at present while usually I used to feed around 15/16 sacks daily before this critical situation,” he said.
He said he has around 3,000 broiler chickens aged 15 days and 5,000 aged 28 days at his farm.
There is no alternative to create an environment to sell chickens and allow the transportation vehicles to supply feeds to the firms and chickens to the market at the earliest, he said.
Proprietor of Kamalamai Hatchery Industry, Om Prakash Shrestha, said that more than 500 poultry farms of Sindhuli district were facing problem due to lockdown.
“Around 300 farms where I used to supply chicks in the district with around 200 additional farms are operating in the district. Around 20 tonnes of feed is required only for those farms where I used to provide chicks. At present, there is no stock of feed. There is no alternative to destroying chicks if there is no supply within next two days,” he said.
According to him, farmers have started reducing feed for chickens while some farmers have started to feed paddy to their chicks.
“The government has stopped the transport of chickens from the farmers’ farms. I became surprised that there coronavirus will be transmitted while transporting chickens from one place to another,” he said.
Similarly, our Bharatpur correspondent adds: The direct impact of lockdown has been seen in the poultry farming. The government has imposed nationwide lockdown to prevent and control the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Farmers are not only facing a problem to sell their chicken products but also facing a shortage of feed for the chickens.
“Poultry is a very sensitive sector as it gets affected even in normal situation. But this time, the entire world is facing a crisis due to the coronavirus. Our business has been hit by the lockdown,” said poultry farmer Madan Pokharel of Purbi-Chiwtan, Parbatipur.
According to him, there was no stock of feed and also no situation to bring at present. About 5,000 layer chickens are in his farm which lay around 3,000 eggs daily.
“Daily 3,000 eggs are being produced but there is no situation to bring the eggs to the market. The demand for eggs is still high in Kathmandu, but there is no chance to supply them,” he said.
Central President of Nepal Hatchery Association Tikaram Pokharel said that there was high problem in live chickens.
“We have a problem to bring raw materials required for manufacturing feeds as Indian government has also imposed lockdown,” he said.
He said that a situation would develop to destroy chicken by digging pits if this situation continues for a few weeks.
According to the statistics, around 2.5 million eggs are produced daily from four million chickens.
Around 52.6 million broiler chickens are being raised in the country for the supply of meat.

Kamalamai Hatchery destroys chicks, eggs
Meanwhile, Kamalamai Hatchery Industry located at Kamalamai Municipality-4 of the district has destroyed chicks and eggs. According to the industry, the situation to destroy chicks and eggs had ensued due to halt of sales following the lockdown.
“Chicks and eggs produced in last one week have been destroyed,” said proprietor Shrestha.
The industry is producing around 35,000 chicks in a week and around 5,500 eggs daily, he said.
The industry has started to produce chicks and eggs from March last year investing around Rs 100 million.
The industry has been supplying chicks and eggs to local market and Sarlahi and Dhanusa districts.
Shrestha said that he was facing a loss of Rs 300,000 daily from the poultry business.