CHAPTER ONE 
BACKGROUND INFORMATION 
Worldwide, more chickens are kept than any other type of poultry, with over 50 billion birds being raised each year as source of meat and eggs. [Card and Leslie,1961] Traditionally, such birds would have been kept extensively in small flocks, foraging during the day and housed at night, this is still the case in developing countries, where the women often make important contributions to family livelihoods through keeping poultry, however, rising world populations and urbanization have led to the bulk of production being in larger, more intensive specialist units. These are often situated close to where the feed is grown or near to where the meat is needed, and result in cheap, safe food being made available for urban communities. (Eriksson and Larson,2008)   The African traditional way of rearing livestock originally uses less of synthetic drugs, although the birds raised are hardy in nature. There is therefore the need for the use of veterinary knowledge of local farmers as a basis for the development of organic alternatives of livestock production.(Adler and Jerry,2012)  Indigenous knowledge has gone a long way over the years to ensure minimal livelihoods for the rural resource-poor people in Nigeria. Most small-holder farmers that desire to adopt modern practices of animal health care are constrained by lack of finance and unavailability of consultancy advice from veterinary officers in remote villages (Kolawole, 2001)  According to Eurostat,(2012) it was stated in value terms, that the EU-27’s crop output grew by 9.1 % in 2011 to EUR 203,330 million and animal output increased by 9.9% to EUR 154,057 million and recently there has been a remarkable interest in livestock production.  Poultry farming has numerous benefits; as a result many farmers prefer to invest in it. People generally establish poultry farm for the purpose of producing eggs, meat and generating high revenue from these products. Billions of chickens are being raised throughout the world as a good source of food from their eggs and meat. However, here I am shortly describing the main benefits of poultry farming. The main benefit of poultry farming is, it doesn’t require high capital for starting .It doesn’t require a big space unless you are going to start commercially. It also ensures high return of investment within a very short period. Some poultry birds like broiler chickens take shorter duration of time to mature and generating profit.  The importance of the poultry industry cannot be over emphasized, because of the vital roles it plays in human nutrition and creation of employment opportunity it provides for the teeming population. The industry if desired attention is paid by government at all levels, poultry industry can successfully absorb a large number of unemployed youth across the country currently searching for unavailable jobs. Through its chain of agro-allied activities, commercial feed aim toll milling, poultry productions processing, poultry marketing, vertinary, pharmaceuticals, hatchery operation and breeder farming. In addition, the industry if properly harnessed, can also serve as source of foreign earning, complementing the crude oil (our present main source of foreign earning) responsible for over 90% of our exports e.g. a product of the industry gives about 3.5g of the total 7.2g animals protein required for individual dietary need per day. Again, (broiler table meat chicken) is the toast of every fast food outlets across the country. This is because chicken meat is cholesterol free; compare to red meat beef, mutton, pork, veal, venison and others, which contains cholesterol (a chemical substance), responsible for the increasing rate of heart diseases amongst Nigerians in recent times. Among which to be mentioned poultry contribute to GDP and GNP of the country.   Furthermore, poultry industry at the moment is bedeviled by enormous problems. Among which are lack of government funding, lack of credit facility, high cost of feeding ingredients, diseases, increasing cost of medications, marketing and lack of storage facility. Diseases are one of the major challenges to the industry, because of the economic importance of the disease causing organisms like bacteria, virus, fungal and protozoan, which poultry birds are susceptible to, bringing about devastating effects to both the flocks and the farmers .For instance, the outbreak of avian influenza otherwise known as bird flu, in 2005/2006, led to death of over 1.5 million birds across the country (Sahara reporter). It will be recalled that large number of poor farmers lost their means of livelihood, when their flocks were destroyed by government without compensation; yet foreign donor agencies are willing to address the problem of avian influenza stated by (WHO, 2005)  The intake of protein in Nigeria stands at 3.5g per caput per day(Ironkwe and Amefule,2008) and this is far less than the 35g per caput per day recommended by the World Health Organization (W.H.O),this shortage of animal protein consumption is partly due to the high cost of conventional meat sources like cattle, goat, sheep(Tewe,1999),it is therefore necessary to search for a cheaper alternative source of meat to meet the ever increasing demand for animal protein.  Information and communication are essential ingredients needed for effective transfer of technologies that are designed to boost agricultural production.