Ranjith’s organic chicken farm

When Ranjith, one of the members of the Working Committee, built a chicken coop three years ago, it was for fun. He had bought some chicken to get eggs for his family and was pleasantly surprised when some hatched. He sold excess eggs to neighbours and friends, bought more chicken from local farmers and from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Veterinary Education and Research (RIVER) in Pondicherry, started brooding them and then discovered the ever-increasing demand for free-range organic eggs and meat.

Soon the hobby turned to business. He did a lot of internet research, participated in training programmes run by RIVER and the Veterinary University Training & Research Centre in Villupuram, and visited farms and factories in Tamil Nadu and other states. It wasn’t a great experience. “I found so many unhappy situations! India is one of the largest egg and poultry meat producers in the world. Large corporations run vast industrialized farms holding hundreds of thousands of chickens. But the chickens are kept in cramped cages and are pumped with antibiotics to prevent illness and bolster growth. When broiler chickens were introduced in the market, their normal life span before slaughter was 90 days; to increase profits, they are now bred to slaughter weight within 40-45 days and they are trying to further reduce that to 30 days! The traditional country chicken takes about 10 months to reach full maturity and 6 months for high-breeds.”

In line with Auroville’s ideology, Ranjith decided to go for organic free-range country chicken. He fenced a large plot next to his house in Kottakarai, built a big hut and a few more coops, and bought chicks. Was it difficult to get country chicks? He smiles. “Not really. Quite a few Indian government institutions are helping small farmers and Indian forest dwellers to gain a decent livelihood by selling them different varieties of country chicken. They are specially bred for free-range farming in rural and tribal areas.”

NattuKozhi and other breeds

Ranjith’s flock has four such breeds. One is the country chicken or NattuKozhi, as the many indigenous breeds are known that for centuries have been raised in the villages of India. They have a slower growth cycle than the high-breeds but have a natural instinct of foraging and escaping from predators. They are resistant to diseases but lay only 60 to 90 small eggs per annum.

Second is the Giriraja, a breed of chicken developed by the Karnataka Veterinary, Animal, and Fishery Sciences University (KVAFSU) in Bangalore. These birds are resistant to many diseases and can be fed with green foliage and farm and kitchen waste. They produce 100-130 eggs a year. The breed is also called Bonda Chicken, a reference to a deep-fried chicken snack.

Another breed is the Gramapriya, developed by the Project Directorate on Poultry, based in Hyderabad. The females of this bird can lay 160-180 eggs a year with minimum supplementary feeding. The males are suitable for tandoori preparations.

A fourth major breed is the Swarnadhara, also developed by KVAFSU. Swarnadhara lay about 140-160 eggs a year.

“I also have a few chickens from the Nicobar islands and ten black chickens, '' says Ranjith. “The Nicobaris are very hardy and produce small eggs, about 140-150 a year. The black chicken called Kadaknath originated from Madhya Pradesh forest. Their eggs and meat are famous for their medical properties and are extremely expensive. My country chicken eggs sell at Rs 12, but the black chicken eggs sell at Rs 50 each!”

Ranjith explains that when he buys chicks, they are one-day old. “Half of them will be roosters and half of them hen. For 10 hens, one rooster is sufficient, so you need to get rid of the roosters in due time. But when you buy chicks, you don’t know their gender. That only becomes obvious after two to three months. After four months I bring the roosters to Koot Road [a village nearby Auroville, eds.] where they are butchered and cleaned. The meat of free-range chicken is tougher than that of broilers and I’ve found that birds of three to five months old provide the tender meat my clients like.” Country chicken meat is much in demand and Ranjith serves clients in Pondicherry and Auroville.

Predators

Apart from clients, Ranjith’s farm also attracts predators, particularly as the Darkali Forest is nearby. “The first problems were the mongoose,” he says. “Mongoose goes after young chicks and over time I’ve lost more than 500 of them. I trained my dogs by throwing stones at any mongoose I saw. Finally, my dogs got it and took up the job. Now any mongoose is greeted by aggressively barking dogs.”

That took care of the mongoose, but their absence created a snake problem. “Once a cobra killed three hens and 20 chicks; they tried to run away, but the snake still managed to bite them and within minutes they were dead.” Though not a professional snake catcher, Ranjith removes the snakes himself. “Rat snakes can be removed quite easily, but cobras are trickier. I use a stick and a bag, and release them in the forest”. Nowadays snake visits are rare, he says, but their absence has created a rat problem. He sighs. “I guess I have to live with that”.

Truly organic?

Ranjith’s chickens have the run of the range, but are their eggs and meat truly organic? “In the daytime I give them the chicken feed I buy from a local supplier. It contains maize, millets, soya, shells and dry fish. I’m not sure if the maize is organic, but the rest is. In the evenings, I feed them with kitchen waste from the Solar Kitchen, and we can trust that most of it is organic,” he says.

Ranjith doesn’t use antibiotics, neither in the feed nor in the treatment of sick birds. He feeds his chicken twice weekly with a mix of ayurvedic herbal medicines that go by the Tamil names of Nilavembu , Kuppaimeni , Keezhanelli , Thulasi , Thuthuvalai and Athimathuram , which, he says, gives excellent results. “These ayurvedic medicines work wonders, and there is no need for antibiotics in the feed or for vaccination. I’m sure they also work against several human illnesses, particularly the almost magical herbal medicine of Nilavembu. It works against dangerous illnesses such as chikungunya, dengue, malaria, and bird flu.”

Ranjith’s farm is the only organic free-range country chicken farm in the bioregion. It now has 900 birds, but the ideal number, he says, should be 5,000. His yard is sufficiently large to host all those birds, but his financial means limit this expansion. “I am going to explore the possibilities to get loans,” he says. “In the present conditions, a Rs. 4.5 lakhs a year turnover should be possible. I have started to financially contribute to Auroville and hope to do more in future.